BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS

Canterbury City Council Bill ( By Order)

Third Reading opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order. No. 20).

Nottingham City Council Bill ( By Order)

Third Reading opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order. No. 20).

Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords] ( By Order)

Consideration of Bill, as amended, opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order No. 20).

Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords] ( By Order)

Consideration of Bill, as amended, opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order No. 20).

Leeds City Council Bill ( By Order)

Consideration of Bill, as amended, opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order No. 20).

Reading Borough Council Bill ( By Order)

Consideration of Bill, as amended, opposed and deferred until Thursday 12 November (Standing Order No. 20).

City of Westminster Bill [ Lords]  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That so much of the Lords message [12 October] as relates to the City of Westminster Bill [ Lords] be now considered.- ( The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on Thursday 12 November.

Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [ Lords]  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill, which was originally introduced in the House of Lords in the Session 2006-07 on 22 January 2007, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First Deputy  Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on Thursday 12 November

Manchester City Council Bill [ Lords]   (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Manchester City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in the House of Lords in the Session 2006-07 on 22 January 2007, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on Thursday 12 November

Canterbury City Council Bill  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in the previous Session on 22 January 2008, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on  Thursday 12 November.

Leeds City Council Bill  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Leeds City Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in the previous Session on 22 January 2008, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on  Thursday 12 November.

Nottingham City Council Bill  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Nottingham City Council Bill which was originally introduced in this House in the previous Session on 22 January 2008, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First  Deputy  Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on Thursday 12 November.

Reading Borough Council Bill  (By Order)

Motion made,
	That the promoters of the Reading Borough Council Bill, which was originally introduced in this House in the previous Session on 22 January 2008, should have leave to suspend any further proceedings on the Bill in order to proceed with it, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament according to the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 188A (Suspension of bills).-( The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.)

Hon. Members: Object.
	 To be considered on  Thursday 12 November.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The Secretary of State was asked-

Carbon Mitigation (Developing Countries)

David Drew: What steps he is taking to reach an international agreement on climate change, with particular reference to helping developing countries introduce carbon mitigation measures.

Edward Miliband: The Government are working to ensure an ambitious, fair and effective international agreement at Copenhagen. The recent European Union decision to support €100 billion a year of public and private finance by 2020 is designed to help developing countries both to adapt to climate change and to pursue low-carbon growth. We now want other developed countries to join us in supporting this financial commitment.

David Drew: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Front-Bench team on the lead they are taking on Copenhagen, which is very pleasing to see. Does he accept, however, that there is an awful lot to do, particularly with reference to the developing world? From trips to Africa, for example, it is quite clear how far it has to come. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that he talks to the Department for International Development about the way in which it can provide real resources to ensure that we get mitigation in those countries?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In a sense, one of the cruellest things about climate change is that the people who have done least to cause the problem, including in Africa and elsewhere, face the worst consequences, while at the same time we have to persuade developing countries to do not as we did, which is to grow in a high-carbon way, but to do as we say, which is to grow in a low-carbon way. That is why it is right that we make a financial contribution to make that possible.

Simon Hughes: While the EU offer of €100 billion is welcome, it is clearly not yet persuading the developing nations that it is sufficient for mitigation and adaptation. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether our Government are willing to take a lead in suggesting an international levy on airline and maritime fuel as a way of adding to the international fund to deal with the needs of the developing world?

Edward Miliband: We are looking at the way in which aviation and maritime can, through a trading regime-as a number of airlines have suggested-play a role in providing the necessary finance for a Copenhagen agreement. I think the most important thing-we will be debating the issues again later today-is that countries make clear commitments on finance. Sources of finance are important, but the real prize at Copenhagen is a clear sense that countries are going to put their money where their mouths are. That is what we are striving to achieve.

Colin Challen: Given the difficulties in the Barcelona talks this week, particularly in getting the annexe 1 countries to agree to more ambitious targets, does my right hon. Friend sympathise with the Africa group for walking out of those talks?

Edward Miliband: I am not sure that walking out is a great way of achieving progress, but that shows that the United Nations framework convention on climate change talks have a history, I am afraid, of mistrust, so progress has been too slow. That is why we have to find other forums, such as the Major Economies Forum that we hosted in London, to pursue success. The truth is that the way to overcome that history of mistrust is to do what the EU and, indeed, Britain has done, which is to start to break the deadlock in the negotiations-for example, by saying to developing countries that we are willing to make a financial contribution so that they can make the necessary changes in their economies.

Greg Clark: For more than 20 years Britain has had a record of leadership on climate change, and that leadership will be vital at Copenhagen. Everyone at Copenhagen should know that there is complete unity of purpose between us on this issue, and that we need to achieve a deal that proves equal to the challenge of climate change. Does the Secretary of State agree that the principles of such a deal are that it must be fair, that it must be ambitious and that it must be binding on all countries?

Edward Miliband: I do agree. We set out exactly those principles in our "Road to Copenhagen" document, which was published in June, and I entirely endorse them.
	I think that ambition is very important. We know that temperature rises of more than 2° will have devastating effects on many parts of our world, including the United Kingdom, and I believe that we need an agreement at Copenhagen that can put us on a path towards preventing them.

Greg Clark: I am grateful for the Secretary of State's answer, but we all know that international summits have their final photo calls and their leaders' handshakes booked well in advance. We all want success at Copenhagen, but the worst kind of failure would be an inadequate deal dressed up as success. Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the most important roles that Britain can play at Copenhagen is to cut through the diplomatic language and tell the truth about whether the deal is rigorous enough?

Edward Miliband: I do, but on this occasion, although the photo calls may have been booked, I have not heard about them.
	This is an issue that will go all the way to the wire. The hon. Gentleman is right: the choice at Copenhagen should not simply be between no deal and a deal. We must choose the kind of deal that we want, and we shall be striving for the most ambitious deal that we can get. It will have to involve finance, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to look again at the important question of official development assistance in the form of financial additionality. As I have said, however, we need the most ambitious deal that we can get, and that is what we shall be striving for.

Greg Clark: I am glad to say that there seems to be a strong degree of consensus between us. I agree with the Secretary of State that for a deal to be worth having, it must be consistent with what science demands, namely a global warming limit of 2°. I also believe that the deal must help the world's poorest people to cope with the effects of climate change, that it must be in addition to, not instead of, fighting their current poverty, and that it must involve immediate action to halt the destruction of the rain forest. Does the Secretary of State agree that those are the tests of a rigorous deal?

Edward Miliband: I do, and I am pleased if the hon. Gentleman is giving a commitment-as he has not done on previous occasions-that climate finance will be additional to official development assistance. That is an important assurance that we need to give to developing countries. If we transfer money out of ODA and into climate finance, the effects will be negative.
	I also agree about the rain forests. Rain forest deforestation represents about 20 per cent. of carbon emissions-more than the percentage of emissions from the world's transport sector-and we need to make progress on that as well as part of a Copenhagen agreement.

Mark Lazarowicz: What assessment has my right hon. Friend been able to make of this morning's reports that, according to influential voices in the United States, an agreement may not be reached until after Copenhagen?

Edward Miliband: I do not think that we should be in plan B territory. I think that we need to be in plan A territory, and plan A territory is about striving for an ambitious deal in December.
	The truth is that this is not going to get any easier. We face very difficult issues. Why is it so difficult? It is difficult because the world is trying to do what it has never done before, and cut global emissions. Kyoto and previous agreements never achieved that. It is tough, but I think that we must strive all out for December. In a sense, the deadline is concentrating minds. We have to raise the stakes and make sure that we get an agreement in December.

Power Cuts

Desmond Swayne: What assessment he has made of the level of risk of power cuts over the next 10 years resulting from shortages in electricity-generating capacity.

Mark Harper: What assessment he has made of the level of risk of power cuts arising from insufficient electricity-generating capacity over the next 10 years.

Edward Miliband: With 10 GW of new generation under construction and another 10 GW with planning consent, we are on track to replace more than the 18 GW of stations scheduled to close by 2018. We are therefore confident that the risks to security of supply are low. To accelerate the pace of building new generation, we are reforming the planning system to ensure faster and better decision making. We still hope to receive all-party support for those measures.

Desmond Swayne: The chief executive of Ofgem has said that we are way behind the French and Germans in generating additional low-carbon capacity. How has that arisen? Was it due to negligence, stupidity or what?

Edward Miliband: No; the chief executive has not said that. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about low-carbon generation, he should tell his Front Benchers to support our planning reforms. What has been holding up low-carbon generation such as renewables, in this country, is precisely the planning system. That is why we are reforming the planning system, why we will publish national policy statements, and why we have the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Unfortunately, the Conservative party wants to abolish that commission, and that will do nothing to obtain the low-carbon generation that the hon. Gentleman says he wants.

Mark Harper: The Secretary of State has said that the Government need to take more of a role in delivering security of supply. Given that he acknowledges that we must replace one third of our generating capacity in the next 10 years, why have the Government left things so late?

Edward Miliband: I do not agree that we have left things late. Indeed, it was this Government, in the teeth of opposition from the Conservative party, who said that we would end the nuclear moratorium and start building nuclear power stations.
	I know that the Conservatives oppose onshore wind, but I was interested to see what the hon. Gentleman says about offshore wind, which is important, on his website:
	"It is also a classic Labour state-focused centralised project."
	In other words, he seems to be against it, and that will not achieve the low-carbon generation that we need in this country, will it?

Michael Clapham: Will my right hon. Friend say how much gas there is in 10 GW? I understand that demand is for something like 22 GW of gas-fired electricity. If that is correct, in the next 20 years we could be over-dependent on gas, so does he intend to take measures to cap gas in the energy mix?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend has asked exactly the right question. The majority is gas, and to obtain the low-carbon revolution that we need, we must press ahead with renewables, for example. The low-carbon transition plan that we published in the summer shows that we can stabilise levels of gas imports, but only if we move ahead with renewables and nuclear. Part of that involves standing up and saying, including to local councils throughout the country, that it is right to go ahead with renewables. Again, the Conservative party singularly fails to do that. Sixty per cent. of wind turbine applications to Conservative councils are turned down. That will not achieve the low-carbon revolution that we need, will it?

Dennis Skinner: Does the Secretary of State agree that the negligence suffered by Britain's energy supplies was during the '80s and '90s, when the Tories blasted a hole and closed 150 pits? We are now importing 54 million tonnes of coal a year from countries that we do not even trust because of that action. May we have a guarantee that now that the world price of coal is going up, we will use coal technology to ensure that those pits that are reopening and the miners who work in them are given a chance?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend is right in his historical analysis and his analysis of the future. The truth is that we know that carbon capture and storage can make coal a fuel of the future and not of the past. That is why we propose a levy to fund carbon capture and storage in this country. Again, I hope that we can have all-party support, because that is what will make coal a fuel of the future and create thousands of jobs in this country.

Charles Hendry: It is good to know that dinosaurs are still with us.
	If the Secretary of State does not want to listen to us, he should at least listen to his own advisers. In the past few weeks, Ofgem's excellent Project Discovery has said that the Government's estimates of energy supply are optimistic. Their own energy adviser, the excellent Professor MacKay, has said that power cuts are likely by 2016. Even the Government's low-carbon transition plan refers to power cuts in 2017, but in Government-speak it calls that energy demand unserved.
	It is on the Government's watch that the mistakes have happened-

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am awaiting the question mark.

Charles Hendry: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the errors occurred on his watch? We have not seen investment in nuclear because of the Government's moratorium. Does he accept that his complacency has put our security at risk?

Edward Miliband: No, I do not accept that. The hon. Gentleman is normally a sensible fellow, but on this occasion he does not seem to be. On the crucial issues that will guarantee security of supply and make the low-carbon transition happen, the Conservative party is on the wrong side of the argument. It is on the wrong side of the planning argument, and it is on the wrong side of the carbon capture and storage levy argument. Also, the shadow Business Secretary has said that we should have "no onshore wind" in this country. That will do nothing for security of supply or low carbon. Therefore, the truth is that the Conservative party would be a risk to the low-carbon transition and to security of supply.

Economic Situation

James McGovern: What assessment he has made of the effect of the current economic situation on prospects for an international agreement on climate change; and if he will make a statement.

Joan Ruddock: The latest analysis indicates a short-term fall in global emissions as a result of the global economic downturn, but long-term projections show a rising trend. Securing a global agreement at Copenhagen is essential to making the transition to a low-carbon economy.

James McGovern: I thank the Minister for that answer. Does she agree that the Government should use tackling climate change as an opportunity to develop green manufacturing jobs in the UK, which would be good for the economy, good for climate change and good for working people-our people?

Joan Ruddock: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and that is exactly what the Government are doing. In this year's Budget, we added an extra £1.4 billion of targeted support to help the transition to the low-carbon economy; that was building on previous commitments, so that £10.4 billion is now being enabled. The low-carbon economy currently supports about 880,000 people in work, and it is a fast-growing sector. This Government will continue to invest. We think that the 15 per cent. renewables target could create as many as 500,000 new jobs. Therefore, this Government will continue to make the investment that is necessary to create jobs, which is more than we can say of the Opposition.

Richard Ottaway: Is the Minister aware that the Committee on Climate Change reported that the reductions in carbon emissions in the United Kingdom over the last four years amounted to a very modest 0.5 per cent. per annum? Does she agree that if she is to have credibility at any international summit on this issue, she will need a better track record than that?

Joan Ruddock: No, I do not agree at all. The fact is that we have more than doubled our Kyoto commitment in respect of the basket of greenhouse gases, which has already been reduced by 21 per cent. on 1990 levels. Therefore, we have got a track record that is recognised in the international forum. Yes, we have had small reductions, but that was during a period of 34 per cent. growth in the economy, so that is still an achievement, and a step change is under way: levels are going down faster, and we have a transition plan that will make them go down faster still.

Andy Reed: My hon. Friend knows that there is a double whammy for developing countries in the current economic crisis: not only are the poorest being hit by the state of the economy, but climate change affects them first. We hear that €100 billion is being made available for mitigation and working with developing countries, but can the Minister give an assurance that that sum will actually be achieved? Those of us who have worked on international debt relief for many years know that promises at conferences very rarely turn into cash on the ground, so can she give an assurance that that will happen?

Joan Ruddock: What I can tell my hon. Friend is that we have learned the lessons from the donor conferences of the past where many countries made promises but did not deliver. We believe there needs to be a new architecture and a new framework, within which the money will be collected according to a formula possibly based, we think, on greenhouse gases and emissions combined, and with every country except the least developed of them having to contribute to the pot. That is the way in which we can make a difference, and that is what we are hoping to achieve in the Copenhagen agreement.

Michael Weir: Vestas and Siemens, which manufacture wind turbines, calculate that for every gigawatt installed, 3,000 new jobs are created. Given the amount of offshore wind that is planned around our shores-and, indeed, off the coast of my constituency-what can we do to ensure that these jobs are created in this country, rather than exported?

Joan Ruddock: We are incentivising the generation of offshore wind. We have already made a commitment of £120 million, and we have seen that by increasing the renewables obligation certificates and agreeing to review them, we are encouraging that industry to come to Britain. I recently visited Aberdeen. The industry there, which has so much expertise in oil and gas, is standing ready to make that transfer into renewables, for which it is very well suited.

International Co-operation

Brian Jenkins: What recent discussions he has had with his international counterparts on reaching an international agreement on climate change; and if he will make a statement.

Nia Griffith: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of efforts to tackle climate change in international forums; and if he will make a statement.

Edward Miliband: I am in intensive dialogue with my international counterparts, as I was last weekend in Barcelona at the United Nations talks and last month at the Major Economies Forum in London. Along with the Prime Minister and others, I expect to engage in further discussions in the run-up to Copenhagen. We are determined to do all that we can to secure the best possible outcome in December.

Brian Jenkins: In recognising the excellent lobbying of this Government by environmental campaigners in this country, will he use his offices to urge those campaigners to contact their sister groups around Europe and the rest of the world in order to put pressure on their leaders, so that they take climate change seriously at the Copenhagen summit and, like our Prime Minister, promise to step up to the mark, if needed?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend is right. The role of campaigners, not only in Britain, but around the world, in securing the agreement we need is very important. There is still a long way to go to get the kind of agreement that we need, despite the summit being only a month away. The ambition has to come not only from Governments and from leadership, but from popular pressure, so I completely agree with him.

Nia Griffith: Can the Secretary of State tell us what talks he has had about including forestry in the discussions at Copenhagen to try to prevent the indiscriminate destruction of forests by fuel-hungry nations looking for biomass fuel, which is obviously causing global warming and often rides roughshod over indigenous peoples and their needs?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend is right to say that deforestation is a very big part of the climate change problem. The issue also involves how we help people in forest nations to carry out the environmental service that we want them to provide to the world, which is not cutting down the forests. Any agreement at Copenhagen needs to include a way to provide the necessary finance for those countries, so that they are incentivised to do the right thing-to manage forests sustainably, rather than cutting them down, as often happens at the moment.

Anne McIntosh: Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Copenhagen on securing this conference, which is a measure of Denmark's record on this issue? Why should any other country take any lectures from his Government on climate change policy, given that they have failed, on adaptation policy, to implement the Pitt recommendations following the floods two years ago?

Edward Miliband: We do not tend to lecture other countries, and if the Conservative party were ever in government, it would find that that is not necessarily the strategy that works. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is implementing the recommendations of the Pitt report. I must say to the hon. Lady that when one talks to people around the world, one finds, as my ministerial colleague has said, that people see that Britain has achieved a huge amount on tackling climate change-it is one of the few countries to exceed its Kyoto targets. Of course there is more to do, but the question is: who is going to make that low-carbon transition happen? As I have tried to explain, it is this Government, not the Conservative party.

Nicholas Winterton: Following up the excellent question put by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), may I ask how much discussion there is in these international forums about the use and development of clean-coal technology in ensuring future energy supplies to this country, which are so crucial?

Edward Miliband: There is discussion about this matter, and the hon. Gentleman has asked a pertinent question. The International Energy Agency has estimated that without finding a carbon capture and storage solution, the cost of the world's tackling climate change will be 70 per cent. higher. In my view, there is no solution to the problem of climate change without a solution to the problem of coal. It is part of the discussions that we are having, and I very much hope that the finance that might be made available will ensure that we have demonstrations in not only developed countries, but developing countries. The good news is that a country such as China, which was more sceptical about CCS a couple of years ago, is now enthusiastic about taking it forward. That is a sign of the way the mood is changing on these issues.

Dari Taylor: I wish to remind my right hon. Friend of his very good visit to Ensus on Teesside, which related to some very complex scientific analysis. During that visit, he stated that his chief scientist would visit Ensus. When will that visit take place, because we seriously look forward to it?

Edward Miliband: I unfortunately did not bring with me the diary of the chief scientist, but on returning to my Department I will make sure that he is reminded of my suggestion that he visits my hon. Friend. It was a good visit, and it related to one particular point about the biofuels debate in this country. We all know the dangers of biofuels in relation to issues of food security and other things, but we also know that we have to have a nuanced debate about these questions. Biofuels can play a role-and a very important one-if they are managed in the right way and if we ensure that they have the right land use effects. I think that that example was demonstrated in my hon. Friend's constituency.

Maldives

Alistair Burt: When he last discussed with the Government of the Maldives the contribution of the UK towards reducing the risks to that country arising from climate change.

Joan Ruddock: We attach great importance to ensuring vulnerable countries are engaged in discussions on climate change. At the London-hosted Major Economies Forum on 18 and 19 October, participation was widened for the first time to bring vulnerable countries to the table. The Maldives was among those in attendance and Minister Aslam participated in the finance session. Last week, I also met Vice-President Waheed at climate change negotiations in Barcelona.

Alistair Burt: I think we were all moved by, and not a little admiring of, the recent cabinet meeting held by His Excellency President Mohamed Nasheed underwater to highlight the plight of his country and show what climate change will mean to them. Following an initiative this year, when he said that his country would go carbon neutral by 2019, the President said that that in itself would not decarbonise the world and save them from annihilation but
	"at least we could die knowing we've done the right thing."
	Does the Minister believe that following Copenhagen every world leader will be able to say exactly the same, no matter how dramatic it was?

Joan Ruddock: I hope very much that that will be the case. We are working tirelessly to that end. Of course, our Prime Minister has said that he will be there, if necessary, to get a deal. There is no question about the Government's commitment. We support the Maldives and encourage it to keep its voice very strong in these negotiations to make the facts available to the world. Its argument is, of course, the most powerful one. If a whole country is to be lost, there can be no more powerful argument than that. We need to keep hearing those messages.

Energy Pricing

Greg Mulholland: What steps he plans to take to prevent energy companies overcharging their customers; and if he will make a statement.

David Kidney: We announced in the low-carbon transition plan last July our proposals to strengthen the enforcement powers of the regulator Ofgem in order to improve consumer protection. Ofgem itself has also made major changes to industry rules to prevent unfair pricing as a result of its retail markets probe.

Greg Mulholland: Reports show that last year npower changed its tariff year for gas customers three times in 12 months, ensuring that customers were kept on the higher rate for charging longer than advertised and overcharging customers by £100 million. What steps can the Minister take to ensure that a tariff year is a firm 12-month commitment and cannot be changed at the whim of energy companies?

David Kidney: I fear that the hon. Gentleman prepared that question before he listened. The Government intend to strengthen the powers of Ofgem in order to ensure that the consumer's interest comes first and that Ofgem has the powers to act immediately when abuse is affecting consumers.

Elliot Morley: Does the Minister agree that one of the best things for consumers in the business sector and the domestic sector is to have the best knowledge of what they are using and the prices that they are paying? In that respect, can he give some indication of the progress in the roll-out of smart meters, which contribute towards that? I have heard that there is some delay and wonder whether he can comment on that.

David Kidney: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for reminding us all that consumers include business customers as well as domestic customers. This country has a very ambitious smart metering programme to complete an entire change in all businesses and domestic properties, with more than 40 million meters by the end of 2020. There is no delay to that programme, and I assure my right hon. Friend that we are very excited about it and that we intend it to go ahead.

Simon Hughes: Given that Energy Ministers in the past, and Ofgem up to now, have been so feeble in dealing with abuses by the big energy companies, will the Minister commit to giving us the opportunity to have an energy Bill in the next session whereby we can give real tough powers to Ofgem? Secondly, will he consider referring the energy industry to the Competition Commission?

David Kidney: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the power to announce the Government's next legislative programme. As I said in my first answer, subject to the proper procedure of this House we do intend that there will be legislation. The regulator, Ofgem, has the principal responsibility for referrals to the Competition Commission, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will have regard to the new quarterly publication of the relationship between wholesale and retail prices. I think that is starting to turn consumers' heat onto their energy suppliers.
	Some licence changes have taken place, and some are about to, but three things taken together-the results of the probe, the licence changes and our legislative proposals-will ensure that the heat continues to be kept on suppliers.

David Taylor: Some of the worst forms of overcharging have typically involved the exploitation of pre-payment meter users. Ofgem has started to tackle that, but will the Minister be taking up one of its present campaigns, which is for a more formalised social tariff system that would help the oldest and poorest consumers to meet their bills over the coming winter?

David Kidney: One licence change that has been implemented is on pre-payment meters, and I answered a parliamentary question last month in which I showed that the difference between standard credit and pre-payment charges has already been all but eliminated as a result. I am very pleased about that because some of the poorest consumers were affected by overcharging on pre-payment meters. As for social price support, in our legislative proposals we hope to expand on the voluntary scheme that is already helping more than 1 million households.

Gregory Barker: Despite the huge drop in wholesale prices in recent months, the Department's own statistics show that more than 4.5 million people will be in fuel poverty this winter, which is a massive increase on last year. When we called last year for an investigation by the Competition Commission, the Minister dithered and said he would talk to Ofgem, because he thought that that would offer a quicker solution. Will the Government now commit to taking real action and holding a quick, forensic investigation into why the consumer is getting such a raw deal from the energy companies under this Government?

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman must surely agree that we would still be waiting for the result if we had taken his course of action a year ago. Instead, in that time we have had the changes to the licence conditions that are making a difference, and we have also committed to legislative changes. In the meantime, the Government's programmes and spending have saved between 400,000 and 800,000 other households from falling into fuel poverty. That is an achievement in itself.

Copenhagen Summit

Lynda Waltho: What steps he is taking to promote public awareness of the Copenhagen climate change summit; and if he will make a statement.

Joan Ruddock: The decisions made at Copenhagen will affect everybody in the UK and around the world for generations to come. So that everyone in the UK can see what we are arguing for in the negotiations, the Government have published the "Road to Copenhagen" which, for the first time, explains our position to the wider public. We also keep people informed through our website and through advertising.

Lynda Waltho: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. In the run-up to Copenhagen, will she confirm her Department's support for low-carbon transport initiatives such as the Parry People Mover, which is a light rail car that runs on the Stourbridge line? It makes an important contribution to the local economy in terms of jobs and green technology. Will she, or the Secretary of State, accept my invitation to come and ride on it?

Joan Ruddock: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her final offer. I fear that the Secretary of State and I are so preoccupied with the international discussions that we are frequently out of the country, but we will of course try very hard to make a new year resolution to accept her invitation.
	I should tell my hon. Friend that we are keeping people informed through the Act on Copenhagen website, to which there have been 80,000 unique visitors. In addition, 60,000 copies of the document have been distributed, including to schools, GP surgeries, libraries and so on. It makes a real difference when people can see local examples of how to move to low carbon, such as the transit system to which she referred-which has, of course, been supported by the Department for Transport. It is through seeing what happens on the ground that people will learn what it is possible to do to meet our low-carbon aims.

Peter Lilley: Was it wise of the Government to spend £6 million of taxpayers' money on a propaganda film showing a father telling fairy stories to his daughter, particularly when the stories turn out to be alarmist tales of British cities drowned under water? Might not one result of that be that it has put the idea into people's minds that this is all a fairy story, with fewer people in this country giving credence-

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that we have got the drift of the question.  [ Interruption. ] Order. Let me make it clear to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) that when I rise, he sits down. His question was too long and it is at an end.

Joan Ruddock: The right hon. Gentleman is someone who does not accept the science and the consensus around it- [ Interruption. ] That is what he appears to be saying. The people who have expressed concerns about the advertisement tend to be in that category. We are trying to make it clear to adults that the science has a great worldwide consensus, that climate change is under way, and that if the Government and everyone else do not act, their children will suffer owing to catastrophic climate change. This is not an exaggeration; we have already had terrific floods in this country as a consequence of climate change. It is important to let people understand the truth, and it is the Government's responsibility to allow that to happen.

Marine Energy

Paul Flynn: How much the Government spent on marine energy projects in each of the last three years.

David Kidney: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I have only a figure for the overall spending over three years by my Department and its predecessor: £6.3 million on marine projects ranging from the Severn tidal project to infrastructure support and environmental research. There has been other spending by the research council, the Technology Strategy Board, the Carbon Trust and the Energy Technologies Institute. Additionally, the Government announced an extra £60 million for measures to accelerate the development and deployment of wave and tidal energy in July's renewable energy strategy.

Paul Flynn: Will tidal barrages and new nuclear both be treated as major projects under the Infrastructure Planning Commission's procedures?

David Kidney: I am intrigued by the way in which my hon. Friend has managed to get nuclear into a question about marine energy. As far as marine projects are concerned, it will depend on the final announcements that are about to be made and, of course, the size of the project proposed. At the beginning, I think it would be unlikely that marine projects would be of the size relevant to the new commission.

Energy Pricing

Tony Baldry: What recent discussions he has had with the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets on the simplification of energy tariffs.

David Kidney: Ministers meet Ofgem frequently to discuss a range of current issues, including consumer issues in the energy markets. Ofgem has recently established new standards for energy suppliers, including requirements that suppliers must not sell a customer a product or service that he or she does not fully understand or that is inappropriate for their needs and circumstances, and that they must not offer products that are unnecessarily complex or confusing.

Tony Baldry: Competition is inherently good, but when one has so many tariffs, they simply obfuscate rather than clarify, and it is difficult in such circumstances for the consumer to compare like with like. Does the Minister think that there should be greater simplification of energy tariffs?

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman clearly articulates the conundrum that while we want open markets, competition and innovation, we do not want people to be bamboozled by enormous changes to the offers made, meaning that they are not comprehensible. One of the licence conditions put in place by Ofgem in September-I referred to it earlier-was the new requirement for information on every bill and for an annual statement to consumers. It is hoped that that will enable consumers to be better informed about the decisions that they make and therefore more empowered.

Charles Hendry: It must clearly be absurd that consumers are faced with dozens-and sometimes hundreds-of alternative tariffs, which must only add to confusion rather than to choice, so will the Minister use an energy Bill to provide greater clarity? Does he accept that social tariffs should always be the lowest tariffs available? Does he accept that consumers should be able to see how much less they would be spending if they were on the cheapest tariff on offer from their provider? Does he accept that consumers should also be able to see how much electricity-

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let me say, I hope for the last time, that Front-Bench Members must ask a question, not a series of three questions. I want to facilitate Back Benchers in this place.

David Kidney: Ofgem has already ruled that if any energy company is to say that it is offering a social tariff, that must be the lowest tariff that it offers. When we have the opportunity, we intend to legislate for mandatory social price support. If such a measure is in an energy Bill in the near future, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and I will be able to debate its precise terms.

Nuclear Waste

John Barrett: What the Government's latest estimate is of the costs of disposal of the UK's current nuclear waste.

David Kidney: Under the Energy Act 2004, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is responsible for the decommissioning and clean-up of the UK's public civil nuclear sites. The cost of disposal is influenced by many different factors, including the inventory of waste, the timing of waste arisings, the geology at the site in question and the design of the geological disposal facility. The NDA's estimate, as given in its 2007-08 annual report, for the undiscounted total lifetime costs of a geological disposal facility for higher activity wastes is £12.2 billion.

John Barrett: Does the Minister accept that when the full costs of disposing of nuclear waste are taken into consideration, electricity generation by nuclear power proves to be a very expensive option?

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman must make a distinction between the historical cost, which we as a nation are picking up and our taxpayers are paying, and the future cost, which we will require the energy companies to cover in their propositions. They will make the decision whether it is economic to go forward on that basis, and so far some of those companies have made decisions totalling £13 billion of investment in new nuclear in this country.

Low Carbon Transition Plan

Shona McIsaac: What recent representations he has received on the Government's low carbon transition plan; and if he will make a statement.

Joan Ruddock: I and my ministerial colleagues have received a large number of comments and representations since the publication of the transition plan and its associated documents on 15 July, including from key international partners involved in negotiations at Copenhagen and the organisations and bodies that will help us to deliver the required emissions reductions in the UK.

Shona McIsaac: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, but most of my constituents probably do not know what a low carbon transition plan is, so will she explain to the House and to a typical resident of north Cleethorpes, living in small, terraced accommodation, what the Government will do to make their homes more energy efficient?

Joan Ruddock: First, I can tell my hon. Friend that a small leaflet is available, and we would be very pleased to give one to her with a simple explanation for her constituents. On the point about homes, we are channelling about £3.2 billion to help households to become more energy efficient; we are piloting a pay-as-you-save programme to help people to invest in more expensive means of insulation; next year we are introducing the clean energy cashback scheme so that people can generate their own energy and be paid to do so; and we will be rolling out smart meters. There is thus a huge programme of activity to help householders such as my hon. Friend's constituents.

Topical Questions

Graham Stuart: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Edward Miliband: In the summer, my Department set out the UK low carbon transition plan. Central to that is planning reform, and we will shortly publish the energy national policy statement, which, alongside the Infrastructure Planning Commission, is designed to speed up the planning process for the benefit of all citizens of Britain.

Graham Stuart: Further to the meeting of 100 legislators from large economies in Copenhagen two weeks ago, will the Secretary of State agree to meet the cross-party delegation and ensure that the principles agreed are shared with not only UK negotiators but European Union negotiators?

Edward Miliband: It will be my pleasure to do so. I was actually due to attend the conference, but family responsibilities took precedence, and that was right for a range of reasons. However, I will definitely meet the legislators to which the hon. Gentleman refers. GLOBE International plays a very important role and will be very important in the next month, too.

Gordon Banks: What comments can my right hon. Friend offer in relation to solicitors overcharging on miners compensation schemes?

David Kidney: I had my most recent meeting with the Legal Complaints Service and the Solicitors Regulation Authority yesterday, and I was saddened and disappointed to hear of so many lawyers who have taken money from vulnerable mineworkers and their bereaved widows when the state has paid them for their services, too. The Legal Complaints Service tells me that it has pursued so many solicitors for overcharging and poor services that it has made them repay about £3 million to their clients. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has prosecuted a number of firms, and they have had to make repayments of more than £3 million to their customers. For such an ethical profession as law, and as a lawyer myself, I am very disappointed.

Robert Smith: The Secretary of State earlier highlighted the importance of new investment to secure our electricity supplies. Will he ensure that people are not driven into fuel poverty just paying to keep the lights on?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right, and we need to be candid about the issue because it is a very big challenge. The pressures on energy prices will be upwards in the coming decade, and we need to do all we can to protect the fuel poor. That is why my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary rightly talked about compulsory price support. I know that the hon. Gentleman campaigns, in particular, on behalf of people who are off the gas grid and who face particular issues. We must ensure that they too receive proper protection as we make the low-carbon transition.

Tony Lloyd: Will the Government reject the siren appeals of the climate change deniers of the Opposition and those who challenge the Act on CO2 ads, and confirm that it will be their policy, as a responsible Government, to get across the message that individuals have to be responsible for turning back the days of climate change, and that only by shocking ads will we get that across to the British public?

Joan Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is a balance to be struck between shocking people and enabling them to think about an issue and resolve to act on it. We have carefully researched how to advertise in a responsible way. We will continue to do that, because it is essential that the British people understand what we are trying to achieve, why we need to move to a low-carbon economy, and why they can be part of it, given that 42 per cent. of all emissions in this country are the result of our own individual actions.

Philip Hollobone: Is the Secretary of State aware that the town of Kettering was recently chosen by the United Nations to be the United Kingdom's representative on a pre-Copenhagen international consultation on climate change in which 93 per cent. of participants said that the Government should attach a high priority to signing up to any climate change deal at Copenhagen?

Joan Ruddock: We are very keen for local people to be involved in any discussions. That is why we published the document entitled the "Road to Copenhagen", why we have a website, and why we encourage people to be in contact with us. It is important that people understand these issues and that they have a sense of ownership, because this is a global problem where we can all feel that we can contribute and have our voices represented by our Governments in getting the most ambitious, effective and fair deal possible.

Chris McCafferty: Given that the UK is the No. 1 EU donor on reproductive health matters, what is the Government's position at Copenhagen on population pressures in terms of climate change, adaptation and mitigation?

Edward Miliband: Population is definitely an issue in relation to climate change; my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many people make that point to me at meetings that I attend. As she implies, the answers to this are the traditional answers that we know work, particularly in developing countries, in terms of women's education and ensuring that development aid goes to women. The economic growth that the world will see over the next 50 years far outweighs, in terms of its impact on carbon emissions if we do nothing, the impact of population issues. The real challenge is to break the link between economic growth and carbon emissions.

Robert Wilson: In January, the UK was down to only a few days' gas storage, while Germany typically has 99 days and France has 120 days. Current Government plans extend this only by a few hours. Does the Minister agree that it is time to secure our gas storage facilities?

Edward Miliband: We do need more gas storage in this country, and there are 18 projects under way. A new gas storage project at Aldburgh is coming on-stream this winter. This is not only about gas storage but about our import capacity, which is up by 25 per cent. since last winter; indeed, our import capacity now represents 125 per cent. of total demand. We need more gas storage-the hon. Gentleman is right about that-but we also need to have import capacity as North sea capacity declines, and to make the transition to other low-carbon fuels.

James McGovern: It is possible that this question has been asked, and answered, but it is so important that it is worth repeating. How will the poorest people in my constituency and, indeed, in the city of Dundee generally, benefit from the community energy saving programme?

Joan Ruddock: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. CESP, a new programme that began in September, is designed to apply to areas that have the very lowest decile income groups. His constituency certainly meets that criterion. A total of £350 million will be invested in energy-saving measures over the next three years, coming from suppliers and generators in 100 low-income communities. I can tell him that British Gas has already announced agreement in principle to work with local authorities in 10 areas: Dundee, Glasgow, Swansea, Preston, Knowsley, Birmingham, Walsall, Blacon in Cheshire, Southwark and Haringey. We hope that they will undertake measures such as solid wall, which we have long pressed for as a means of helping those with the most difficult homes to insulate.

Nicholas Winterton: With the introduction of climate change measures, what is the average additional levy that gas and electricity users pay on their bills each quarter?

Edward Miliband: We said in the low carbon transition plan, which is getting a lot of airtime today, that the impact of the climate change measures that we announced in it would be about 6 per cent. on bills by 2020, or about 8 per cent. including previous measures.
	It is important to say that we do not believe there is a low-cost, high-carbon future out there, even if we wanted to pursue it. As we import more gas and as demand from China, India and other countries goes up, if we do not transition to other fuels we will be subject to more volatile prices as a result of growing demand from those countries.

Paul Flynn: Why are expensive new nuclear developments advancing at the speed of a striking cobra while good value, clean marine developments are moving at the pace of an arthritic sloth?

Edward Miliband: I will draw on the compliment paid to us by my hon. Friend that we are advancing with the speed of a striking cobra as far as the nuclear industry is concerned. I am sure that Opposition Front Benchers agree with that point.
	On the sloth issue, in the marine industry part of the challenge has been proving the marine technology. I think there was some recent good news on that from a company called Marine Current Turbines. We set up the marine renewables deployment fund of £50 million, and the condition agreed with the industry was that the technology had to work for three months. The problem has been that it has not been able to work so far, which is why we have set up an intermediate fund to help companies over that barrier.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House needs to proceed with the speed of a striking cobra if we are to maximise the number of colleagues who get in.

Anne McIntosh: The Secretary of State wants to speed up the planning process for public planning inquiries. Will he therefore go out and educate the public on energy from waste plants? If he truly believes that they are not harmful, why is he not explaining that to the Great British public?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Lady makes an important point. I am not promising adverts, but we will take up her suggestion.

Alun Michael: It is clear that most people are much more positive and objective about wind energy if they own the project, whereas problems arise when they see outside companies coming in to do something to the local area. Will my right hon. Friend look again at the case that I outlined in Westminster Hall on 12 July 2006 and get his Department to act to promote community ownership of wind energy?

Edward Miliband: My right hon. Friend, who has a proud history of work in the co-operative movement, makes an important point. I was not aware of the debate of 12 July 2006, but I can look forward to it as bedtime reading.

Jim Cunningham: If we had not made changes to planning laws, how long would it take to build a nuclear power station?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The experience of Sizewell B in the 1980s is a very good reason for changing the planning system. The Opposition Front Benchers are nodding, and I hope that their nods will be translated into support for our Infrastructure Planning Commission.

David Taylor: The Secretary of State has spoken today about the dual role of renewables in providing additional generating capacity and tackling climate change. How happy is he with the equity and effectiveness of the proposed new feed-in tariffs? It is envisaged that there will be payments of 31p per unit for new houses and 36.5p for retrofitted houses, but a miserly 9p for existing systems installed by community pioneers.

Edward Miliband: We are in the midst of a consultation on this question, but I say to my hon. Friend-this goes back to the question that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) asked-that we always have to remember not just the people who want to have wind turbines and solar panels, important though that is, but those who pay the bills, who are the consumers. There is a balance to be struck, but we are in the middle of a consultation and will of course listen, as we always do.

David Clelland: Are Ministers aware of the reception held in the House yesterday by National Energy Action, which among other things drew attention to the health through warmth programme? Will they congratulate npower and all those involved in the programme? How can the Department help that programme to continue and grow?

David Kidney: I am delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue and the health through warmth programme, which also exists in my constituency. I have visited schemes in the past and I offer to draw attention to the successes of the programme soon, because it is one of the ways in which organisations such as local authorities, the health service and energy companies come together to identify people in need of help to insulate their homes, improve their health, save on their budgets and cut carbon emissions at the same time.

Mark Lazarowicz: What opportunities are presented by the likely signing of the Lisbon treaty for Europe to work together to tackle climate change?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend asks a very important question. It is important that Europe speaks with one voice-we have seen that in relation to the finance proposals-but we should also be careful about the company we keep in relation to Europe and the issue of climate change. We should be in the mainstream, not on the fringes. Frankly, I think hanging around with climate change deniers is a very big mistake.

Business of the House

George Young: Will the Leader of the House give us next week's business?

Harriet Harman: The business for next week is as follows:
	Monday 9 November-Consideration of Lords amendments to the Coroners and Justice Bill.
	Tuesday 10 November-Consideration of Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Health Bill [ Lords], followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [ Lords].
	Wednesday 11 November-Consideration of Lords amendments to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.
	Colleagues will wish to be reminded that the House will meet at 2.30 pm on that day.
	Thursday 12 November-If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Policing and Crime Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.
	The House will be prorogued when Royal Assent to all Acts has been signified.

George Young: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business.
	Yesterday, the right hon. and learned Lady said that she would table the motion on Professor Sir Ian Kennedy's appointment as chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority within the next few days. Will she ensure that the House is given fair warning so that that does not just pop up on the Order Paper by surprise, as the appointment of the Speaker's Committee on IPSA did last week?
	May I repeat the call for a debate on how Sir Christopher Kelly's report will be implemented? Despite what the right hon. and learned Lady said yesterday, of Kelly's 60 recommendations, I have counted at least 12 that are decisions that need to be taken by the House, and another 10 recommendations on strengthening IPSA will require primary legislation. That means that more than a third of Sir Christopher's report requires the attention of the House rather than that of the independent regulator. The right hon. and learned Lady said yesterday that she did not think that we should be addressing the question of legislating to change the IPSA structure, but is it not clear that that is exactly what we shall have to do if, as she said yesterday, we implement Kelly's proposals in full?
	May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on his assertion on 10 June that Government action has saved 500,000 jobs? Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have repeatedly used that figure in the House to justify Government decisions over the past 12 months, but last night the Treasury published documents under the Freedom of Information Act showing that the advice given to Ministers before this year's Budget was that a figure of
	"between 250,000 and 450,000"
	could be used, but that any
	"public statement should be worded carefully".
	Moreover, the documents make it completely clear that it could be seen as spurious for the Government even to claim that number, because monetary policy, which we have consistently supported, is independent of Government. Will the Prime Minister and the Chancellor take an early opportunity to correct the record?
	The Committee on Reform of the House of Commons is due to set out its findings by the end of next week. Will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that when it is published she will make an oral statement to the House on how the Government plan to take forward that Committee's recommendations? When might we have an opportunity to debate that Committee's important report?
	Next Monday, we were due to debate secondary legislation on the 2011 census. That debate has been unexpectedly postponed. Given that we have expressed real concerns about the intrusive nature of some of those questions, is that an indication, as we hope, that the Government have decided to reconsider the invasive format of the new census?
	May I ask the Leader of the House yet again to provide us with the date of the pre-Budget report? The Chancellor had his opportunity at Treasury questions on Tuesday, but did not take it. There are reports that the Prime Minister is clashing with the Chancellor over the former's plans for a massive new spending spree before the election. Do the Government not owe it to the public to come clean on their spending plans?
	Finally, on the economy, may we have a statement on the recent outburst from the Government's enterprise tsar, Lord Sugar-that the majority of small firms are just "moaners" who need not a bank but an insolvency practitioner? Is that not a rather unusual way to champion a sector that is normally referred to as the lifeblood of the economy? With the Federation of Small Businesses calling for Lord Sugar to go, does the Leader of the House think that he still has the confidence of the companies that he is meant to be representing? Or is it time to say, "You're fired"?

Harriet Harman: I have undertaken to the House that we will bring forward the motion as soon as possible to endorse your choice, Mr. Speaker, of Professor Sir Ian Kennedy as the chair of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Notification to the House will be made in the normal way.
	On the issue of decisions that need to be taken by the House and those that would need legislative change, it is helpful to look at the Kelly report proposals for substantive changes in respect of a new allowance system. Effectively, Sir Christopher Kelly has proposed a new allowance framework, and that should be the priority, along with setting up the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. As far as the House is concerned, we need to help the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority get on with its work by endorsing the appointment of the chair. It will then be for the authority to take forward the Kelly proposals and implement them. That is the central and important objective. The other issues can be looked at, but they are not germane to the aim of having a new allowance system, based on Kelly's proposals, in place and ready for the new Parliament.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about the half a million jobs that would have been lost had the Government not taken action. Perhaps I may identify for him the action that we have taken which, had the Conservatives been in government, would not have been taken, but which has made such a difference in protecting jobs. First, we brought forward capital projects, which not only ensures good capital investment in schools and health centres, but provides jobs. If we had not done that, it would have cost jobs. We also brought forward our time to pay proposals for businesses, so that they are not put out of business because they cannot pay their taxes as a consequence of the global financial crisis and the credit crunch-

Nicholas Winterton: This is a party political broadcast.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) that I require no assistance from him- [ Interruption. ] Order. I am chairing the proceedings. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to participate, he should sit and listen.

Harriet Harman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	Some 200,000 businesses have been able to defer payment of tax and stay in business through the difficult economic times, and that has saved jobs. If those firms had been put out of business because they had been made insolvent by HMRC, that would have cost jobs. Then there is the temporary 2.5 per cent. VAT cut, which helped the economy, and that has helped jobs.
	We have also taken other fiscal stimulus measures, including the increase in child benefit and pensions. All those measures have preserved at least half a million jobs, and we therefore stand by that figure. There will be further discussion in the pre-Budget report about the economy, and our plans will be laid out. If hon. Members want to ask anything else, they can discuss the matter, no doubt, in the economic part of the debate on the Queen's Speech.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked for an opportunity to debate the proposals from the Committee Reform of the House of Commons, and I will look for, and discuss with him, when is the best opportunity for the House to discuss those important proposals. He also asked about the census. I do not know the answer to that question. I will have to find out-or perhaps someone will tell me before the end of business questions. If they do, I will interpose it in an answer to somebody else's question.
	I think that is it. [Hon. Members: "Lord Sugar?"] That is certainly it.

David Heath: First, I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and all the Officers of the House, for the conduct of the meeting of the Youth Parliament last Friday. I thought that it was a huge success, and we should mark it as such.
	Will the Leader of the House consider the way in which the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill has been timetabled? That constitutional Bill is in Committee of the whole House, and 16 clauses and one schedule have already gone through without any debate, simply because of timetabling by the Government. That is simply unacceptable. Will she ensure that the following days of Committee will not be curtailed in that way and that we have full and proper discussion of the very important matters that should be under scrutiny?
	The whole country is debating, almost on a daily basis, the grim news from Afghanistan. The only place where there has not been a recent opportunity to do so is in this Chamber. It is time that we had a full day's debate on the policy being pursued in Afghanistan, not simply from a military point of view, but from a foreign affairs point of view too. We need to ask some serious questions about the position in which we are putting our very brave and professional troops in Afghanistan. It is time for the House to have that debate.
	May we also have a debate on the Government control of IT systems? The computer system for criminal justice managed to waste £41 million through delays and cost overruns, and £161 million cannot be accounted for in the management of that project. Two years ago, it was abandoned. We are used to appalling IT procurement, but that really is a humdinger. It is time that we had a debate on the matter.
	Finally, may we also have a debate on consumer protection? I am concerned that many trading standards departments, including mine in Somerset, seem no longer to give consumer advice. That is wrong. It means that consumers are not provided with protection from being ripped off over shoddy goods, false claims or cast-iron guarantees that prove worthless.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman stole a march on me and the shadow Leader of the House in thanking you, Mr. Speaker, and everyone else who took part in helping the Youth Parliament. It was a brilliant occasion, and I hope that we will do it again. It was fantastic.
	All proceedings of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill in Committee are being taken on the Floor of the House, and it was agreed without Division that we should have four days in that Committee of the whole House. Then it came to dividing up the subjects for each day. The day before yesterday-or was it yesterday?-25 of the 27 groups were gone through. The Bill was, of course, subject to detailed pre-legislative scrutiny by a Committee of both Houses, but in reality there is discussion across the parties about how to organise the debates. It is not possible to predict with complete accuracy how many speakers will be attracted to each debate; it is not an exact science. However, we have no interest in anything other than ensuring that the House has as much time as it needs, and that it is apportioned properly across each section of the legislation.
	We all remain deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan. It is always addressed at Prime Minister's questions, and I think that we will need to return to it. As I have announced, we have no space for general debates before the Queen's Speech, because we have all the Lords amendments coming back from the Lords prior to the House proroguing before the Queen's Speech. There will be the debates after the Queen's Speech, but I will need to look for an opportunity for us to have a debate on Afghanistan shortly.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned what he described as the humdinging computer issue in the Ministry of Justice. I would simply say that Justice questions are next week.

Emily Thornberry: While the Kelly report is to be welcomed, some aspects of it need clarification. Can my right hon. and learned Friend help us by explaining the transitional arrangements for the communications allowance?

Harriet Harman: There are a number of transitional issues, including the communications allowance. We have put in place transitional arrangements, following the decisions of the House in April, May and June. We now have the Kelly report, and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will come into place for the next Parliament. Colleagues will want to be sure that they are aware of how they should be doing things in the post-Kelly, pre-Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority transitional period that we are now in, particularly in respect of the property valuation date of 4 November that Sir Christopher Kelly has proposed.
	I am grateful to the Chairman of the Committee on Members Allowances, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), who has undertaken to identify the issues that hon. Members are asking about and to liaise with Sir Christopher and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, as well as the House authorities, to ensure that the House authorities issue clear guidance to Members on the matters of concern to them in the interim period. Members will therefore receive proper guidance right away from the House authorities on the decisions that they will have to take.
	On the communications allowance, the issues are the use of communications expenditure and the regulated period for election expenditure under the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, under which new expenditure limits will come into force. There is also the ceasing of the use of the communications allowance in an election period. There have been discussions across the parties, and, having reached an agreement, the Justice Secretary has indicated that he will sign the order bringing into effect the new financial limits for election spending, which will start from 1 January. The proposal is that the use of the communications allowance should end on 31 December, after which the new election expenses limits will come into force.
	I know that hon. Members will be concerned about how they advertise their advice surgeries, for example, once the communications allowance has ceased. We will have to have some guidance on that from the Members Estimate Committee. Indeed, it might be possible to deal with that under the office cost allowance.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: Order. From now on I want to make much faster progress. Brief questions and brief answers are required.

Lee Scott: Will the Leader of the House look into holding a debate on the cuts to accident and emergency services at hospitals such as King George hospital, which serves my constituency?

Harriet Harman: There are no cuts in the national health service, but there certainly would have been if public spending had been under the control of the Conservative party over the past 10 years.

Sally Keeble: My right hon. and learned Friend shares my concerns about the position of women in the financial services industry, but does she share my concern that the Government mandate for the Walker review on banking governance does not refer specifically to the position of women in banking? Will she organise a debate on that important subject, so that we can ensure justice for women in the financial services industry?

Harriet Harman: The important thing is that the financial services industry should work properly and draw on the best talents and abilities of the country as a whole. It clearly is not doing that if it continues to operate as an old boys' network, as it is now. Although my hon. Friend is a great example, as she is a member of the Treasury Committee, I am afraid that the Committee itself is setting a bad example, because she is the only woman serving on it. Good governance requires a meritocracy, and an old boys' network is certainly not a meritocracy.

Andrew Tyrie: Will the Government find time soon to debate the proposals that I am publishing today on behalf of the all-party group on extraordinary rendition, to try to get a clampdown on extraordinary rendition and give the public confidence that Britain will no longer be used, either directly or indirectly, for that practice?

Harriet Harman: The Government have made it absolutely clear that we will not allow this country to be party to, participate in or be used for the process of kidnapping and abduction, or illegally transporting detainees across borders. That is not something that we accept or endorse, and all of those are already criminal offences.

Barry Sheerman: May I tempt the Leader of the House to have an early debate on the nature of childhood, and on how we protect children and prescribe certain legislative guarantees that make children and childhood safe in our time?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, makes an important suggestion. Perhaps we can consider holding a topical debate on that subject, as it involves a number of issues about safeguarding children and the registration of people involved with them. Several of those issues have been raised recently, so perhaps we could do with having a debate on them on the Floor of the House.

Jo Swinson: As of this week, the footage and clips of what is going on here in Parliament are easily available to search and view on the excellent BBC Democracy Live website, so that the people out there can see the business of the House. The ability to share those clips with their friends or on their own websites is available for the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly-in short, everywhere but Westminster. Will the Leader of the House take steps to ensure that the public have equal access to footage of the business of this House?

Harriet Harman: I will look into that and liaise with the House authorities and my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Gordon Prentice: My early-day motion 2237 on the question of the referendum on the treaty of Lisbon was approved by the Table Office last night and subsequently gutted by a senior official to remove the names of Members who said two years ago that they wanted a referendum even if the Lisbon treaty were ratified.
	 [That this House calls on those hon. Members who have previously expressed the view that a referendum should be held on the Lisbon Treaty before or after ratification to clarify their position now that the Treaty has been ratified by all Member States.]
	May I ask my friend on the Front Bench whether we can have an early debate on the whole question of the referendum, to allow the 45 Opposition Members who said that they still wanted a referendum even after ratification to debate the issue?

Harriet Harman: I can give my hon. Friend a cast-iron guarantee that I will look into these issues. It is clear that we have had a cast-iron U-turn from the Opposition, who would put us on the margins of Europe and make it more difficult for us to pursue this country's objectives on the economy, climate change and security. The content of EDMs is a matter for the House officials; it is a matter for them to ensure that EDMs are expressed in appropriate language.

Peter Luff: On the subject of cast-iron guarantees, may I remind the Leader of the House of one that the Government have given on many occasions to hold a debate on the pre-Budget report? May I push her for an early indication on that-it will be a particularly important pre-Budget report-and for a commitment on such a debate, please?

Harriet Harman: We will look to have a proper opportunity for ensuring that there is a possibility of a debate on economic issues following the statement on the pre-Budget report. I am aware of the points that have been made by the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) and many others about this issue.

Gisela Stuart: May we have a debate on the work and track record of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, and, in particular, on its consistent refusal to recognise khat, a root that is chewed primarily by people in the Somali community and that has a dangerous and damaging effect on mental health in such communities? The committee keeps claiming that there is insufficient evidence from a broad population base that it should be a proscribed drug.

Harriet Harman: Perhaps my hon. Friend could look into having a debate on that in Westminster Hall or on the Adjournment. I am sure that other hon. Members would want to join in.

Michael Penning: Will the Leader of the House apologise to my constituents for saying a moment ago that there had been no cuts in the NHS under Labour? My acute hospital has been decimated: the accident and emergency unit has been closed, as have the maternity unit, the intensive care unit and the high-dependency unit. All the beds have been closed. The diagnostic unit has stayed open, along with the out-patients and minor injuries units. Is that really what the Leader of the House meant by "no cuts" in the NHS under Labour?

Harriet Harman: There has been increased funding and improvement in services, resulting in fewer deaths from preventable diseases. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to say that the health service has got worse, he is not engaging with the reality. There has been more funding, more doctors, nurses and staff, and more equipment, and there are better outcomes for people's health and for saving lives. That is the same in his constituency as anywhere else across the country.

Paul Flynn: When can we debate our reliance on the corrupt, depraved, drug-addicted, murdering thieves of the Afghan police?

Harriet Harman: We are all concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and about what happened in relation to the Afghan police, with the terrible loss of our soldiers' lives. I will look for an opportunity to debate that as soon as we can after the Queen's Speech has been concluded.

Andrew MacKay: May I assist the Leader of the House by giving her an opportunity now to answer the question about Lord Sugar? Will she tell us whether she will apologise for his outrageous remarks. If not, does that mean that she endorses them?

Harriet Harman: I am afraid that I have not actually seen the remarks that were made. I do not know whether they were made in the House of Lords or on a TV programme, but I will look into them.

Colin Challen: Now that the House looks set to adopt the Kelly review in full, will my right hon. and learned Friend introduce a similar review of all taxpayers' money, whether it is spent by quangocrats, senior civil servants or retired civil servants, or whether it applies to the recipients of Government money through contracts, so that businesses-including newspapers that take Government advertising-can also be brought into this regime of openness and transparency?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend has made a wide-ranging point about transparency, and he makes a good point about the higher echelons of public sector pay. That subject is currently being looked at by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We can all recognise that the top of public sector pay has got completely out of hand, with many people being paid more than the Prime Minister. We need to get a grip on that and sort it out. I also think that pay transparency is very important in the private sector, and that is one of the things that will be in the Equality Bill.

Nigel Dodds: Given the greater attention that the House is now, rightly, paying to public opinion of this House, may we have a debate on why the British people continue to be denied their say on the relationship between the UK and the European Union? Why does there appear to be a conspiracy across all the main parties to deny the people of the United Kingdom their say? It is what they want; why can they not have their say?

Harriet Harman: The people of the United Kingdom have general elections in which they elect Members to this House, and we decide things as elected representatives thereafter. We are accountable for our decisions to our electorate.

David Taylor: The centenary year of Girlguiding UK has just commenced. May we have a short debate on the merits of that estimable organisation? It has 100,000 adult volunteer leaders and 20,000 supporters providing a framework that enables 450,000 Rainbows, Brownies and Guides to enjoy a girl-led programme that builds skills, confidence and self-esteem in a phenomenal way.

Harriet Harman: I agree with my hon. Friend's tribute to the Girl Guides, and this might be a subject for a debate in Westminster Hall or on the Adjournment.

Christopher Fraser: I have called for a debate on the legacy of the Olympics before, but there are now real concerns that the promise of increased grass-roots participation in sport is not being delivered. There are now 1,000 days until the Olympics. Does the Leader of the House accept that we need time in this House to debate the legacy of that event?

Harriet Harman: There is going to be a fantastic Olympics and a fantastic legacy in many, many respects. We shall have Culture, Media and Sport questions on Monday, at which time the hon. Gentleman can put his questions to the Minister.

David Drew: I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) said about the Lisbon referendum, which proves that some of us have not changed our minds. I also welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House said in reply to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) about a debate on Afghanistan, but will she ensure that that debate is on a substantive motion?

Harriet Harman: As I have said, I will consider how the House is able to participate in a debate on Afghanistan as soon as we possibly can. It is a matter of great priority for those on both sides of the House.

Greg Mulholland: The all-party save the pub group has received evidence to show that the Office of Fair Trading decision to ignore the super-complaint from the Campaign for Real Ale is deeply flawed and represents a dereliction of duty by this public body. May we have an investigation and an urgent debate in the House about this very serious matter?

Harriet Harman: There are business questions next week, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to raise the matter with Ministers then.

Mark Lazarowicz: May I simply endorse the request from a number of Members for a debate on Afghanistan? When we went into that country, one of our objectives was to support the establishment of democracy, but the farce of the recent election has led many Members and members of the public to question our strategy, so that debate should be held as soon as possible.

Harriet Harman: Although there have been recent statements, I think that, because of situation after the election and because of the continued tragic loss of life, it is right to have a debate on Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Peter Bone: My constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Kemp and their eight-year-old daughter went to Egypt. As they went through the airport, they passed through an automatic temperature control. The little girl had a slight temperature: they had their passports confiscated, they were removed to a filthy isolation hospital and they were detained there against their will. May we have an urgent statement from the Foreign Secretary next week on the Egyptian policy of kidnapping British tourists?

Harriet Harman: I will ask my ministerial colleague to write to the hon. Gentleman about that particular case.

Philip Hollobone: On the eve of Remembrance Sunday and in a week that has seen a high-profile court case involving a young man who urinated on a war memorial, may we have a statement from the Ministry of Defence about the special and sacred way in which war memorials should be considered by the public and the sanctions available to the police and the law authorities to use against those who seek to ruin the memorials to people who have given their lives in the service of our country.

Harriet Harman: I will ask the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Gentleman about that issue.

Mark Harper: May we have a debate about how to measure accurately the difference in pay between men and women? In one of her other guises, the Leader of the House is always very fond of quoting just one figure, but the Office for National Statistics made it clear yesterday that pay rates are an important but complex matter, and that a range of measurements should be used. According to one of those measures, men who work part time are shown to be paid less than women.

Harriet Harman: I have had discussions with ONS about this and it has decided on three measurements. The top-line measurement is the average hourly pay difference between all employed men and all employed women. That is the top-line measurement. Below that, another measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working full time, while the third measurement is the average hourly pay difference between men and women working part time. I would not want the hon. Gentleman to be under the misapprehension that somehow men are paid less well than women. That is not the case. If one looks at men and women going out to work, we find that women are paid a fifth less than men across the average. I do not believe that per hour of their work, women are 22 per cent. less intelligent than men, 22 per cent. less hard working than men or 22 per cent. less valuable to their employers than men. That is gender discrimination in pay, but, given the hon. Gentleman's question, it very much sounds to me as though he is a gender pay discrimination denier. It is certainly not the case that men as a whole are paid less than women, even though the hon. Gentleman might dredge up a few examples.

Nicholas Winterton: Does the Leader of the House believe that it may be necessary to amend our sitting hours in view of the impact on this House of some of the proposals in the Kelly report?

Harriet Harman: We certainly want to make absolutely sure in future that, whatever changes are made by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority following on from the Kelly report, neither men nor women MPs will find it difficult to get home very late at night, so arrangements will have to be made one way or another to ensure that men and women can get on with their work in the House.

Robert Smith: May I welcome the fact that the Leader of the House has said that she will find time for a debate on Afghanistan, and reinforce its importance? She should ensure that it is a full day's debate in the middle of the week so that we secure maximum participation by Members who want to raise constituents' questions. In that debate, will she ensure that Ministers understand and are reminded of why we ended up in Afghanistan in the first place? They should not forget the history of what happened in that country and should perhaps apologise to the people of Afghanistan for when we took our eye off the ball, which damaged the achievement of our goals and the aims that took us there in the first place.

Harriet Harman: It will be important to have a debate about the objectives of our mission in Afghanistan and how we achieve them, but I think that the central point-it is made by the Prime Minister when he answers questions about this at Prime Minister's questions-is that the mission is not only important for the people in Afghanistan, but for the security of people in this country. Two thirds of all the terror plots in this country have links with the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. It is a question of this country's security.

Peter Bone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

John Gummer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to hon. Members for their enthusiasm to raise points of order, which, as they will know, come after statements. I myself have a short statement to make before we proceed to the main business.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: The House will recall the exchange during questions to the Prime Minister yesterday about serving members of the armed forces and their opportunities to see our proceedings.
	I am glad to say now that we will ensure that up to six visiting serving members of the armed forces will always be found places in the Galleries, whatever the other pressures may be-for example, when we have Prime Minister's questions and other high-profile proceedings. Should there be more than six who cannot immediately be accommodated, we shall arrange a brief tour or seats in the Lords Gallery until space is available here.
	We owe a huge debt to those who serve in our armed forces. They will always be welcome in this place, and I am sure that the House will welcome this reflection of the respect that we have for them.

Points of Order

Peter Bone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Ah, the points of order are still here.

Peter Bone: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	During business questions, there appeared to be a planted question to which the Leader of the House made a mini-statement about the communications allowance. Many Back Benchers would have liked to question the Leader of the House about that. Have you, Mr. Speaker, been given any indication that a proper oral statement will be made?

Mr. Speaker: May I say to the hon. Gentleman that I have had no such indication, and it is, of course, a matter for the Chair to determine the orderly conduct of business. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will rest content with that situation.

Mark Harper: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House will know of the importance you attach to answering written questions. The Government have issued new guidance to Ministers that the reply saying that it has not been possible to answer a written question ahead of Prorogation should be used only for those questions tabled in the two weeks before Prorogation. As of last Thursday, more than 1,500 written questions still awaited an answer. What advice can you give the House to ensure that those questions are indeed answered before Prorogation and that the form of words I mentioned is not used as a means of avoiding ministerial accountability?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The short answer to his question is twofold. First, guidance is a matter for Ministers and it is not for me to interfere with that. Secondly, it is of the essence that there are timely and substantive answers to right hon. and hon. Members' written parliamentary questions. In that context, the House will be aware-I have previously announced it-that a procedure is to be established for tracking the answering of written questions, and the transparency that that will bring should act as an incentive for Ministers speedily and comprehensively to answer questions. I am confident that that incentive will be effective, but if it is not, I expect the hon. Member and others will soon raise further points of order, when I shall have to reiterate the importance I attach to making progress on this matter.

John Gummer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We very much appreciate the way in which you have sought to ensure that questions are answered promptly. We, as Members of Parliament, are increasingly under pressure in regard to individual cases dealt with by the Home Office involving people who urgently need an answer, often when items have been very severely delayed, lost in either the post or the Home Office. As we are approaching some gaps during which Parliament will not be sitting, would it be possible for the House to invent a better system for enabling people to receive immediate responses? These are individuals who may be in serious individual difficulties, and we as Members of Parliament ought to represent them more effectively.

Mr. Speaker: What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, whose thoughtful point of order I appreciate, is that it would be very difficult and, arguably, constitutionally hazardous to seek to specify a procedure for one Department that differs from the procedure that would be expected to apply to others.
	The key point here is that answers are needed, they are needed in a timely fashion, and they are needed in a comprehensive form. It is, frankly, for Ministers to recognise both the salience and the urgency of the questions, not least when individual cases are being put to them, and they must then respond in an effective fashion. If that requires the devotion of additional human or other resources to achieve the objective, those resources must be provided, because the House must come first.

Nigel Dodds: Further to the point of order from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), Mr. Speaker. May I prevail on your good offices to ensure that all right hon. and hon. Members receive, as a matter of urgency, clarification of where matters stand post-Kelly in relation to all the allowances and so on? It appears to many Members that they must trawl through myriad different pieces of information-statements and so forth-to establish the current position, and it is vital that it be clarified for all Members.

Mr. Speaker: I think that the Leader of the House has herself been clear about the need for maximum clarity. I can only say to the hon. Gentleman, and to the House, that there are also responsibilities for Departments in the House to communicate to Members what the current and the expected future position shall be. It is difficult for me to give the hon. Gentleman a more comprehensive explanation than the one that I have just offered, but he has put on the record a serious point and a legitimate concern, and the Leader of the House is in her place and has heard it.

Philip Hollobone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in regard to your very welcome statement about tickets for service men to attend Prime Minister's Question Time. Has consideration been given to allowing servicemen to sit in the largely unused upper viewing Galleries for Members?

Mr. Speaker: The short answer is that consideration has not been given, but the hon. Gentleman prompts such consideration, and I am grateful to him for putting his views on the record.
	If there are no further points of order, we shall proceed to the main business.

Climate Change

[ Relevant documents: Sixth Report from the Environmental Audit Committee, Session 2007-08, Reaching an international agreement on climate change, HC 355, and the  Government response, HC 1055; Fourth Report from the Committee, Session 2008-09, Reducing CO2 and other emissions from shipping, HC 528, and the Government  response, HC 1015; and Fifth Report from the Committee, Session 2008-09,  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, HC 30, and the  Government response, HC 1063.  The Road to Copenhagen: The UK Government's case for an ambitious i nternational agreement on climate change, Cm 7659.  The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan: National Strategy for Climate Change,  laid on 15 July 2009.  Adapting to climate change: UK climate projections June 2009.  Letter from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs dated  16 October 2009 to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee enclosing a  map showing the implications for the world of four degrees of warming. ]

Edward Miliband: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of climate change: preparation for the Copenhagen climate change conference.
	As Members will know, the United Nations Copenhagen climate change conference will open in a month's time. At this critical time, the Government believe that it is important for the House to have a chance to discuss our preparations for the conference. In the time available to me, I want to explain why we believe that we need an agreement at Copenhagen, the sort of agreement that we wish to try to secure there, and the steps that we are taking in that respect.
	Let me start by addressing the question of why we need an agreement. In the last year, I have had the privilege of meeting people in places from the northern desert of China to the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. I think that in such places we see the reality of climate change, in the sense that we are utterly interdependent. Actions in one country will affect those in another, and it is often the poorest and most vulnerable in our world, who have done the least to cause the problem of climate change, who face the greatest additional vulnerability. None of us, however, can insulate ourselves from the effects of climate change.
	The urgency of climate change and, indeed, Copenhagen lies in the science. Atmospheric concentrations are at their highest level for at least 650,000 years. In the United Kingdom, nine of the 10 warmest years on record occurred during the last 15. In 2007, for the first time in recorded history, the north-west passage of the Arctic was ice-free and open to shipping in the summer. All those facts are important, and remaking the case for the science seems to me to be important as well.
	We hear siren voices saying that the science is not real and that it is utterly contested and divided, and coming up with a whole range of explanations. I think that all of us in the House have a responsibility in that regard. I am not a scientist, but I am advised by a range of scientists-many of whom do not work for me, but work for organisations from the Royal Society to the Hadley Centre and a range of other institutions-and I think that remaking that case is very important.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Edward Miliband: What a range of choices! I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen).

Colin Challen: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, not least for making that last point. Just lately, a number of those siren voices have been saying that there has been a little bit of cooling in recent years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is entirely explicable within the models and the overall trend of global warming?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend is right. This may be the point at which the fact that I am not a scientist will come out, but I believe I am right in saying that 1998 was a particularly warm year. That was because of the El Niño effect, and that is why I have made the point that if we look at a longer period, we are struck by the fact that nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred during the last 15.

John Gummer: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that even if we were wrong about human intervention in climate change, the measures that we need to take would have to be taken if we are to live in this world in a sustainable way, given the increase in population and the increase in the expectations and choices that that population has?

Edward Miliband: I do agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He has made an important point. Let me make another, related point. On the basis of my conversations with scientists, I believe that they are as certain about this as scientists are certain about anything. Even if they were not utterly certain about it, however, would we really want to bet our future on the very slim possibility that they might be wrong?
	This is the best analogy that I can think of. If I were told that my children could go on an aeroplane flight in 20 years' time and there was a 90 per cent. chance that the aeroplane would crash, I would never send them on the aeroplane flight. In this instance, when it is being said that the probability is 95 per cent. or more, I ask: do we really want to bet our future on the very slim possibility that the scientists might be wrong, which I do not believe they are?

Graham Stuart: I congratulate the Secretary of State on his argument. I remember that, when his brother was responsible for these matters, I felt that the introduction to the Bill that became the Climate Change Act 2008 rather overstated the case. We would do better to talk about risk if we are to carry people with us, given that many of them are rightly sceptical. We should not create artificial divides between deniers and alarmists. There is a risk, and only people with peculiar and unfounded levels of certainty can be sure one way or another. That is why we must think in terms of responsible actions in the future.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I will, of course, brook no criticism of my brother. He does own up to getting a D in A-level physics, but I do not think that that explains the particular point that the hon. Gentleman has made. However, I know that he agrees with me on the question of risk.

Michael Weir: I agree entirely with what the Secretary of State says about the science, but is not one of the difficulties that the science tells us that we must take strong action? Politicians also say that we must take strong action, but in the lead-up to Copenhagen, there seems to be a drift away from that strong action. There is a certain cynicism among the public because we say that strong action is needed, but are apparently unwilling to take it.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that the politics is behind the science. There has been some catching up in various countries in the past year, but his fundamental point that the politics is behind the science is correct.

Barry Gardiner: I am glad that my right hon. Friend has nailed the scientific element at the beginning. Does he agree that if the science showed that climate change is not man-made, the problem would be that much more urgent, and our action to remedy it would be that much more urgent, because we would not know what was causing the increases in the carbon dioxide emissions that are causing temperature fluctuation?

Edward Miliband: My hon. Friend knows much about such matters, and makes an important point.
	There is a strong scientific and environmental argument. The truth is that we must act. The 4° map that we have attached to the documents for this debate illustrates some of the impact of dangerous climate change that will arise if we do not act, including melting of glaciers, rises in sea levels, and increasing drought, and that applies not just abroad. There is another issue that we must nail in this debate because I was struck by research showing that only 18 per cent. of people in the UK thought that their children would be affected by climate change. That suggests a responsibility to do a better job of getting across the potential impact.

Peter Ainsworth: The Secretary of State is making an exemplary speech, but is it not the case that more than 18 per cent. of children believe that their future may be affected, and are not children one of our best weapons to persuade grown-ups to get off their backsides and do something about it?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important and characteristically smart point. Children really understand the issue. I believe that 50 per cent. of parents pay attention to their children when it comes to climate change, but that only 2 per cent. pay attention to politicians. That is perhaps slightly depressing.  [ Interruption. ] I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) who said from a sedentary position that it is indoctrination. I think it is about information.

Philip Hollobone: Kettering was chosen to be the UK representative in the international consultation on climate change issues ahead of Copenhagen. People were asked:
	"To what extent were you familiar with climate change and its consequences"
	before taking part in the consultation? In reply, 58 per cent. of those from Kettering said that they knew some, 19 per cent. said that they knew little, and 19 per cent. said that they knew a lot.

Edward Miliband: Having succeeded in getting Kettering's role into our discussions twice in the past two hours, the hon. Gentleman deserves local coverage. He speaks proudly for Kettering's role in climate change, and its people may be better informed than the general population, but the answers depend slightly on how questions are asked.

Simon Hughes: Does the Secretary of State agree that there is other clear evidence to support the case for following the precautionary principle? Last year, 20 million people around the world were displaced by climate-related disasters, and that figure is predicted to rise to 150 million over the next 40 years. The actions that resulted in them losing their homes and their livelihoods were real, and if that is not evidence that something is happening to our climate, no one will be believed.

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about the dangers both for those people and, frankly, for people in other countries to which they may be displaced. That point is absolutely right.
	Let me move on briefly to make the other half of the argument, which partly relates to a point made earlier by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer): there is an environmental argument, but there is also the positive argument. If anything, politicians in such debates-this is not a party political point at all-have not done enough to make the positive case for making the transition to low carbon: the case for future jobs and where they come from, for energy security, which is particularly important for Britain, and for quality of life.
	All those issues are very important, and an example of what this means in concrete terms is that there is a question for Europe about whether it moves from 20 per cent. reductions in 2020, compared with 1990, as part of the Copenhagen agreement-that is our unilateral commitment-to 30 per cent. reductions. Some people will no doubt say that we cannot afford the cost and that it is very difficult to do that. I hope that we can get an agreement that is ambitious enough, so that Europe can move to the 30 per cent. target, partly for climate change and environmental reasons, but also for economic reasons. If we want a more robust carbon price-I believe that we all do, to achieve the low-carbon investment that we need and to give businesses the confidence to invest-frankly, the single best thing that we can do is to get an ambitious agreement at Copenhagen, including an ambitious move by Europe.
	By the way, our data suggest-in no way do I celebrate this, obviously-that the recession has made it easier for Europe to go to 30 per cent., precisely because of the impacts on emissions in 2020, as a result. So it is important to make the environmental argument, but it is also important to make the economic and other arguments.

Joan Walley: My right hon. Friend's attendance at Copenhagen is important, but on the economic agenda and the way in which we need to get through the recession at the moment, will he give the House an undertaking that he will work with the Regional Ministers, including the Minister for the West Midlands, so that areas such as Stoke-on-Trent can take advantage of the new environmental technologies that need to be developed? Innovation is needed if we are to meet our Copenhagen targets.

Edward Miliband: Definitely, and my hon. Friend makes a very important point. Her championing of the work done in Stoke-on-Trent is extremely important, because, in terms of the economic agenda, there is huge potential in different parts of the country.

John Hemming: On the other arguments for sustainability, is the Secretary of State aware of the recent research done by the UK Energy Research Council that identified that it is quite likely that global oil production will peak in the next 10 years, if it already has not peaked?

Edward Miliband: Yes, there are different views on peak oil. I do not want to embarrass the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal by quoting him again, but whether or not people say that will happen on a certain date, we must make the low-carbon transition. I find that the peak oilers get very exercised about this question, for reasons that I understand, but whether we care about climate change or peak oil, the basic message is in a sense, "Let's diversify; let's move to low carbon."
	Let me move to the second part of my remarks. What kind of agreement are we looking for? It is important to say, as I did during questions earlier, that the UN negotiations are moving too slowly and not going well, as anyone reading the newspapers or seeing walk-outs and so on will know. That is partly because there is a history of mistrust in the negotiations between developed and developing countries, as hon. Members on both sides of the House will know, and partly because people are stuck in entrenched positions, and it is very hard to get out of them. In a sense, that feels intrinsic to those negotiations.
	The paradox is that if we look around the world at what has happened in the past year-this is not to try to put on rose-tinted spectacles-we see that lots of things have changed and happened that should give us cause for hope. The new American Administration have got a cap-and-trade Bill through Congress if not through the Senate, and I will come to that later. The new Japanese Government have found much greater ambition in their emissions reductions. For the first time, a Chinese President went to the UN-again, this has been underestimated in the debate-and announced a change in his domestic policy by saying that China would make substantial cuts in its carbon intensity by 2020.
	As I said to the Chinese Minister on Saturday, we now await the numbers underlying that announcement. India has also been moving on this. Therefore, there is cause for hope, and I do not think we should be too negative.

Graham Stuart: Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the biggest blocks to progress at Copenhagen is the fact that the developed countries-the annexe 1 countries-have not met their promises? I know that we will do so, but other annexe 1 countries have not, and that does not give space to Governments of countries such as China that represent hundreds of millions of people who live on less than $1.50 a day. Such countries are already doing quite a lot, but how can they have the political space to take action when the rich, annexe 1 countries fail to do what they formally promised to do?

Edward Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Whatever agreement is struck at Copenhagen, one issue for the future will be compliance and what we do in cases of non-compliance. There are not, in truth, easy answers to that.
	That point leads me on to address the core of the deal that we are looking for, about which I think hon. Members on both sides of the House agree. Ambition is important. We must get on a 2° trajectory. Lord Stern has come up with rather interesting numbers on this, which suggest that the world is currently emitting about 50 gigatonnes, and we should be seeking to get on a pathway leading to about 18 gigatonnes by 2050. To get on that pathway, we need to be at 44 gigatonnes by 2020. That is a good benchmark for thinking about the agreement we are seeking, although we will have to see whether we will get all the way to 44 gigatonnes. Lord Stern says-this is why there is a little cause for optimism-that the pledges already on the table take us down to 48 gigatonnes. That reduction might not sound like very much, but it should be noted that we would expect the numbers to rise to between 55 and 60 gigatonnes if people were carrying on with business as usual. We need to go further, however-we need to have the ambition to do so. That will have to come from actions by countries, finance for developing countries, and succeeding in areas such as reducing deforestation.

Jo Swinson: I am listening with great interest, and I am enjoying the Secretary of State's speech. In terms of these negotiations and the need to deal with the entrenched positions and get positive movement, it is vital that world leaders attend as well as people like himself- [Interruption.] That comment came out wrong.
	I am therefore very pleased that the Prime Minister has said he will go to Copenhagen and take a lead for the UK. However, what might the country be able to do diplomatically to encourage other countries also to send their Heads of State-their Presidents and Prime Ministers-as well as their Environment Ministers, because when there are such entrenched positions, that is sometimes what is required to get solutions?

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I just gently say to the House that I know there is a lot of interest in speaking in this debate, and we wish to facilitate the full and free flow of debate, but I hope that interventions will become shorter as we proceed, not longer?

Edward Miliband: I assure the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) that I took her remarks in the spirit in which they were intended. It is, indeed, important that world leaders are at Copenhagen. She made the important point that we will need such leaders in order to seal the deal, and I have repeatedly made that point to our counterparts in the United States and elsewhere. As someone who is helping to negotiate on some of these issues, I was very struck that before the leaders summit in L'Aquila in July we were making very little progress on the question of whether the major economies would sign up to the 2° target for an outcome at Copenhagen, but the intervention of leaders made it happen. That is illustrative of the role leaders can, and must, play.

Simon Hughes: There is no doubt that world leaders are taking an interest and Governments are taking a much greater interest. Does the Secretary of State accept that given the current state of negotiations, which he will know more about than me, there is a risk that the best we will get is a framework deal, not a deal with commitments? Does he also agree that it is better to have a framework deal, and speedy recall and serious commitments, than a weak deal? Also, will the UK still contemplate being bolder than the EU was a couple of weeks ago in trying to trigger further progress?

Edward Miliband: That is an important point, and I promise the hon. Gentleman that I will come to it.
	We need to be ambitious, and we also need to be fair in the agreement we reach, which is why finance is so important. It is worth making the point that we are asking developing countries to do not as we did, but as we say we want them to do-that is, to grow in a low-carbon way. Let me give one example: 450 million people in India are not connected to the electricity grid and we are asking the country to leapfrog over the high-carbon way of getting electricity to people and to move to a low-carbon way of doing that. I was encouraged when I was in India. It has very ambitious plans for 20 million people to get solar power and lighting, but 20 million is a long way short of 450 million. Therefore, when people ask what finance in Copenhagen is about, this is my answer: it is in part about enabling countries such as India to move further and faster, to the benefit of the world, as it will not drive up its emissions as it would if it went down the high-carbon route; and it is also, crucially, about adaptation for some of the poorest countries in the world. I know that many hon. Members feel strongly about that.
	In this context, the EU offer is very important. The offer is €100 billion in public and private finance by 2020, a global public finance offer of between €22 billion and €50 billion-that is a range, but it is a range that we will take into the negotiations-and global fast-start finance. The big task-let me be completely candid-is to try to get other countries to sign up to this. Europe has taken a lead, but we now need the United States and other countries to move on finance as well. That is not straightforward, but it is crucial.
	Let me mention in passing the issue of additionality, because it is very important. Oxfam has done very good research showing the costs if, for instance, $50 billion a year was diverted from aid budgets. That is why we have said we will use no more than 10 per cent. of the existing aid budget in order to make our climate finance contribution. We have further to go to secure such additionality commitments from other countries.

Nigel Dodds: Is it possible to justify taking 10 per cent. out of the aid budget? Why should part of the financing come out of the aid budget? Is that not an entirely separate issue?

Edward Miliband: We want to limit the amount of money that is spent from the aid budget, but about 10 per cent. of the aid budget is already spent on climate-related activities, because the truth is that in certain cases we cannot separate out climate change-induced issues from issues of poverty, as the two are inextricably linked. That concludes my second point, which was on fairness and finance.
	My third point is on the comprehensive nature of the agreement. Many hon. Members have campaigned on forestry and deforestation, and we must make progress on that. As far as I can tell, this is one of the areas where the United Nations negotiations have been going slightly better, such as in respect of the issue of reducing emissions from deforestation and RED-plus.

Joan Walley: Deforestation is critical in getting an overall agreement. I was therefore disturbed to read reports in the media a couple of weeks ago that the European negotiating position would be not to support the removal of palm oil in plantations. I understand that is not the case. I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend would put the record straight, so that we know what position Europe is taking in the negotiations on forests.

Edward Miliband: I am glad my hon. Friend makes that point, because it gives me the chance to make it clear that  The Independent is not always right in its reporting. It is not the case that we want to do what has been said in respect of the EU. We completely understand her point and the issue of necessary protection.
	The agreement needs to be comprehensive. That leads me on to the point made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) about the kind of agreement we get. The Danes, who are the hosts of the meeting, have said in the past couple of weeks that, given the pace of the UN negotiations, they think achieving a full legal treaty is unlikely. It has to be said that we would have preferred a full legal treaty.
	The important thing about the agreement we seek in December is that although it may be a political agreement, it must lead, on a very clear timetable, to a legally binding treaty. In other words, in December, we must set the terms of the movement to such a treaty, because that is very important. I must make it clear that, in addition, an agreement without numbers would not be a great agreement-it would be a wholly inadequate agreement. Even though the agreement may be a political agreement, it must be as comprehensive as possible and it must contain numbers, because that is what we are talking about. It is all very well getting the architecture right-there are big issues involved in the architecture of an agreement-but the numbers are what really matter.
	We must also have reduction commitments from developed countries and actions from developing countries that translate into reduced quantities of emissions-not cuts in emissions from major developing countries before 2020, but real actions that contribute to the kind of peaking of global emissions that is a central task of the agreement. Then-this is where the architecture matters-we need to find a way of transparently recording those commitments from developed countries and actions from developing countries, and have people standing behind them. It is important to say that we have made some progress on the question of developing countries needing to put actions on the table that can be quantified and that they will stand behind.

Elliot Morley: The Secretary of State is getting very much to the heart of the matter. I wish to raise the issue of numbers with him, because he will know that one of the weaknesses of the Kyoto agreement was that the figures were the result of horse-trading; they were not really the result of any kind of scientific assessment. We must not make the same mistake in Copenhagen.

Edward Miliband: My right hon. Friend, who knows so much about these questions, is right. We need to agree numbers that are not only scientifically based, but realistic. In retrospect, it is clear that some countries signed up to numbers at Kyoto-I do not know whether they knew that this would be the case at the time-that they have come nowhere close to achieving. The numbers need to be realistic and consistent with the science.
	Let me say how we get to that agreement. I think that I have made it clear that the formal negotiations have their role, but will not, on their own, achieve success. That is why in June the Prime Minister made proposals on finance, and it is why it is right that the European Union has not treated this like a conventional negotiation-it has not kept its cards close to its chest until 3 am on the last evening and then revealed its finance numbers. We have got to push and we have to be persuaders, and sometimes unilateral action is important, because it drives people forward.
	I also think that the EU's role in the coming weeks is to use our commitment to go to 30 per cent. as part of a global deal as a way of levering up greater commitments from others. May I briefly say something about the situation in the United States, which is very important? Hon. Members will know that it is, in a sense, key to this deal and the situation is not straightforward at all. I believe that it is still possible that the US will come forward with a clear number at Copenhagen, despite the fact that the Senate Bill may not be through. That is very important, because the risks of failure at Copenhagen and delay are significant; I do not think that this gets any easier the longer we leave it. Thus, I think-we have conversations about this with the United States-that it is important that the US, despite its domestic issues, comes to Copenhagen with a clear set of ambitions and is able to sign up to an agreement. We know that we need the US as part of an agreement and that the biggest flaw in the Kyoto agreement was that the US was not part of it. Just to be clear, we in Europe intend to use our commitments to drive others forward.

Parmjit Dhanda: I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, who is making the case extremely well as to why the United States, and all the major powers, have a big role to play. Will he argue the case in this Chamber today for the President of the United States to be in Copenhagen, because that is the strongest way of getting the message across and actually doing something about the problem?

Edward Miliband: I have made it clear that leaders do have a very important role to play. What President Obama does is obviously a matter for him, but we have made it clear that we think that leaders need to be part of a Copenhagen agreement if we are to secure the agreement we want.
	Let me conclude by repeating that we need to keep our focus on a good deal, not just any deal. A deal without numbers would be a bad deal; a deal without developed country commitments would not be a good deal; and a deal without action from developing countries would not be a good deal. The central task of any agreement is to show that we can be on, at worst, the 2° pathway, and that we have a credible way of peaking global emissions. The world has never done that before throughout its industrial history and it is a very big prize.
	I wish to end on a note of optimism. There are huge difficulties, because of the scale of the task that we face. As I have said in our discussions with other countries, every country faces its compelling constraints in this, be it the US, where the debate is behind that in other countries, or India, because of the number of its people who are in poverty and the fact that it needs to grow. The truth is that we will succeed in tackling this only if we understand each other's constraints and show ambition. If we can conclude a successful agreement in Copenhagen, I do not think that people will look back and say, "This was a mistake." I think that people will look back and say, "This was an historic moment. It was actually easier than people thought to make the kind of changes that we need to make." As the chief scientist in the US said to me, once we start to turn around this inexorable rise in emissions, people will say, "Actually, the quality of life can be better, our economy can be better and it was not so hard after all." The aim at Copenhagen is not only to avoid environmental disaster, but to build a better life for people here and around the world, and I hope that we can agree something that those in all parts of the House can support.

Greg Clark: May I say how much the Conservatives welcome this important debate at this important time? We particularly welcome the tone that the Secretary of State has brought to his remarks today. We entirely concur with it and we appreciate the bipartisanship with which he has approached this issue.
	It is just 31 days until the beginning of the talks in Copenhagen and it is vital that from this debate we send out a clear message that there is complete unity of purpose across the House, and between the agenda that the British Government are pursuing and this House, so that there can be no suggestion that that is in any way at risk in the negotiations. Indeed, there has long been agreement on both sides of the House that climate change poses a real and urgent risk, both to the UK and to the world.
	Some 20 years ago this week, on 8 November 1989, Mrs. Thatcher addressed the UN General Assembly on the need to tackle climate change. She said:
	"The work ahead will be long and exacting. We should embark on it hopeful of success, not fearful of failure... We are not the lords, we are the Lord's creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself-preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder. May we all be equal to that task."
	I believe that her words will be as relevant in Copenhagen and during the weeks ahead as they were in New York 20 years ago.
	Let us be under no illusion as to the historic significance of the Copenhagen conference. It may be as pivotal for the 21st century as the Bretton Woods summit was for the arrangements for the second half of the 20th century. Out of that historic gathering came a new internationally agreed order governing the way in which our economies interact with each other. It has, since the second world war, guided the way in which we interact globally and it has left us with institutions that have endured, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Copenhagen agreement must be no less ambitious in its scope, and I hope that it will be no less influential in all our futures in respect of seeing the global shift that we all desire towards a low-carbon economy over the next 40 years.
	That is why the Secretary of State was right to say that Copenhagen is so much more than just an environmental summit, important though that is. This is about our future national and international security. It is about the future of our national and international economic competitiveness. It is about securing a good future for our children and their children, and about our responsibilities to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.
	My party leader pointed out in a speech last month that if the Himalayan glaciers melt, more than 750 million people will be without sufficient water. We cannot deny that that would have serious consequences for us all in terms of global conflict, mass movements of people and our own national security. I do not believe that anyone here wants to see our atmosphere polluted, our lands rendered uninhabitable, or vulnerable populations denied sufficient food and water. There is something deeply unsettling about the realisation that many of our everyday acts, which we have taken for granted over the years-how we heat and light our homes and how we travel to work-have actively contributed to this grave situation. I am reminded of something that Hayek wrote:
	"We are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilisation except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our own part, and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals have apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected."

Colin Challen: Most of us present today would agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has just said-perhaps up to the point when he mentioned Hayek-but can we get some focus here? Does he agree that the 100 billion euros or dollars of finance that should be achieved by 2020, which the Prime Minister has mooted and which the EU supports, is the right figure? Should it be more? How will that figure easily be delivered if we are living in a post-recessionary age of austerity?

Greg Clark: The hon. Gentleman sets out the challenge and I shall go on to address it in detail. It is very difficult to tell whether that figure is the right one, and perhaps during the winding-up speech the Minister will apprise us of its construction. I think that we are all agreed that it needs to be adequate to the task of helping countries that will be affected by the consequences of climate change to defend themselves and to adapt to that inevitability. The question of what that figure should be is pertinent. It is impossible for me to say from the Dispatch Box precisely what it should be-indeed, one of the objectives for Copenhagen is that it should be right.

Karen Buck: May I return the hon. Gentleman to the subject of error, as mentioned in his quotation from Hayek? Does it not worry him just a little that the international consensus that we need to establish, not just for Copenhagen but beyond, requires working with partners who understand and accept the reality of climate change? Has not his party, worryingly, put itself in a position in Europe where it is allied with climate changers- [ Interruption. ] - sorry, climate change deniers? Is there not a genuine problem with how he is going to get the co-operation needed to tackle those problems?

Greg Clark: I hope that the hon. Lady is not trying to sow dissent and concern where they do not exist. My party in this country and in its European alliances is completely committed to tackling climate change. In fact, we regard it as one of the essential competences of the EU. There is no difference there. Many of our allies have some of the best records in Europe. Greenpeace in the Netherlands cited our sister party there as one of the greenest parties in Europe. The hon. Lady should set her mind at rest on this point. We are committed to working closely and vigorously with our colleagues in Europe, as we have done in recent years. No one who has studied the debates on these matters in the European Parliament in recent years can have failed to notice the leadership that the British Conservative delegation there has given from our Front Bench.

John Gummer: My hon. Friend knows that I take a clear view on Europe. Does he agree that part of the role of us all is to convince those who are as yet unconvinced, and that we will have additional opportunities to do that in these circumstances? The real fact of the matter is that climate change is too important for cheap party political points.

Greg Clark: My right hon. Friend always speaks with clarity, and he certainly did then. That is an important point. My experience is that the best way to persuade people who take a different view, when there is a minority, is to entice them through reason to one's point of view, rather than to seek to denounce and create dividing lines. The latter is the wrong approach, especially on this sort of issue. We should resist creating division in an area where we should be rallying people to a cause that we all support.

Peter Ainsworth: My hon. Friend might want to point out to the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), who raised that rather silly and trite point, the difficulties that our colleagues in the European Parliament had in dealing with our former allies in the CDU who were intent on and assiduous in looking after their vested industrial interests in Germany.

Greg Clark: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The exercise of persuasion needs to happen in all parties and all groups. I dare say that the allies of the Labour party might contain one or two people whose position could be strengthened.
	Let me be clear: I see Copenhagen as a massive opportunity for Britain and I share the Secretary of State's optimism. The world is about to undergo a transformation in energy just as far-reaching as the revolution in IT over the past 20 years. A vast new global market is opening up in which Britain is extraordinarily well placed to prosper. The skills that are needed to lead the low-carbon revolution are skills that we have in abundance in such industries as marine engineering and the process industries. We have some of the best universities and research institutes in the world dedicated to those disciplines. We have on our east coast the North sea, which is literally and figuratively a sea of energy, abundant in wind, wave and tidal resources and with depleted gas wells and saline aquifers that are perfect for storing CO2, all surrounded by enormous energy markets on two coasts, with some of the heaviest concentrations of industrial users anywhere in the world.
	In the past 10 years in Britain, the only two major sectors to have increased net employment are financial services and the public sector. It is obvious to everyone in this House that we cannot go on like that. I believe that the low-carbon industries should be at the centre of a clear and deliberate British industrial policy in the years ahead. That is another reason why Britain needs a strong climate deal to be struck at Copenhagen. Like the Secretary of State, I am confident that a deal is possible.
	It is usual, and probably prudent, in advance of major negotiations for people to be concerned and to worry about the prospects for an agreement. We certainly should not take one for granted, but I believe that recent signs have been positive. One by one, the major players are coming on board: the US Administration, Australia, Japan and even China, as the Secretary of State mentioned. China is arguably the pivotal nation in these talks, and when President Hu told the United Nations in September that China would agree to substantial cuts in emissions intensity and would ensure that 20 per cent. of its power came from renewables by 2020, I thought that that was a highly significant development and one that gives us cause for optimism.
	That development happened not just because China has suddenly gone green, although I think it fair to point out that its experience of current climate change has instilled in it an awareness of the consequences of climate change. The Chinese Government clearly recognise the significant opportunities for their economy-like the opportunities for ours-in making it less dependent on fossil fuels and more energy efficient.

Graham Stuart: My hon. Friend is right to pay greater attention to the actions that have been taken by China, which does not often get fair publicity for what it does. Does he agree that, when the Government said in 2003 how important carbon capture and storage was, our country was perfectly positioned to lead the world? It is not shameful that a country such as China, which is still developing, is now ahead of Britain, whereas we are still dithering about demonstration projects?

Greg Clark: It is regrettable and it is an important issue of leadership that we should lead not just in negotiations, but by example-

Clive Efford: Now you are being partisan.

Greg Clark: The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that this is a partisan point, but it is not. No one would be more delighted than I or more thrilled than the Conservative party if we were to establish leadership in CCS technology now. Communities with which I am familiar would benefit instantly from investment in it. It should be a matter of cross-party consensus that we should be in the vanguard of the technology, rather than lagging behind.

Edward Miliband: For his CCS policy, the hon. Gentleman has been relying on the auction revenues from the EU emissions trading scheme. Over the past six months I have been telling him that those revenues have already been accounted for in the Government accounts. We hope that the forthcoming energy Bill will include a proposal for a levy to fund CCS. Will he support that example of leadership?

Greg Clark: The Secretary of State says that the ETS revenues are accounted for, but he has not been able to point out in the Red Book what they are being spent on, or how much he has spent. He might want to give us the answer now: how much has been allocated? I should be happy to give way to him if he can tell us how much has been allocated and spent.
	Answer came there none. We will of course look at the Bill when it is published. It would be foolish to endorse the levy uncritically and sight unseen. We will give our reaction to the proposal when the Secretary of State publishes the Bill. That is the time for us to do that, but if he would like to share the details in advance, we will give him an earlier assessment of whether it passes muster. It is in the interests of China, just as it is in our own, to move to a genuinely low-carbon economy.
	As I said in Question Time, with so much at stake and yet so much still to be agreed on, it is easy to be pessimistic about our chances of reaching a successful deal. We must not seek a deal for a deal's sake-to be fair, the Secretary of State has shown himself to be cognisant of that risk and determined to avoid it. We agree that the worst kind of failure would be to trumpet a deal that was inadequate as in some way satisfying what is needed. However, even though that might be what we want now, we know that summits have a momentum. The pressures for an agreement-for the handshake that I mentioned earlier-will be intense. The Heads of State and of Government who fly in will not want to fly out again without achieving some sort of concordat. It is more important to get an agreement than it is to have a photograph at the end of the summit. I hope that the Secretary of State will be true to what he has said today and blow the whistle on any deal that is not adequate.

Nick Hurd: I support the comments of my hon. Friend, but does he agree that the Secretary of State did not mention an extremely important constituency to which a real deal at Copenhagen is vital? I am talking about the business community, which has to take now the decisions on long-term infrastructure assets that are likely to determine whether we meet our interim targets. The members of that community see muddle where they want clarity and the framework for investment that Copenhagen must deliver.

Greg Clark: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The investments that we need will come mostly from private investors and companies. They can make those investments only if they have a stable policy environment in which they can be confident. One cause of the delay in some investments is that public policy in this country and, to an extent, around the world has added to the risk, rather than reduced it. Copenhagen is an important way for us to take some of the risk away.
	Any agreement that can be considered rigorous must pass a number of tests, including but not limited to the following list. First, an agreement has to be sufficiently rigorous to bind the world in a common commitment to keep the rise in global temperatures to below 2° C. That has to be explicit if any deal is to carry credibility. Secondly, the deal must establish a new international financial mechanism that will provide our brothers and sisters in the world's poorest countries with the means to protect themselves against future floods, famine and drought. To that end, we must use funds additional to and not instead of, the resources currently deployed to fight poverty. It would be bizarre if, having agreed to help alleviate the poverty of various countries, we were then to find that an additional problem came along and made us forget about that agreement. There needs to be a recognition that climate change is an additional challenge that requires additional help.

Alan Whitehead: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said about additionality, but does he agree that additional money to make the Copenhagen agreement work should not be taken from existing UK aid budgets? Does he agree that the new money must be separate and clearly distinct, and that it should not put those aid budgets at risk?

Greg Clark: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I agree with his analysis. If we regard climate change as a new and additional problem, we need new and additional resources to tackle it. In that regard, I do not understand fully how the figure of 10 per cent. has been arrived at. I know that the Secretary of State wants to be rigorous, but it seems a suspiciously round number. How can we know that 10 per cent. will be the proportion of the aid budget that is relevant for ever and a day? I would like a more rigorous basis for that number.
	I believe that that must be part of the Copenhagen agreement. Unilateral commitments by individual countries will not lead to the necessary certainty of funding. Various mechanisms are already on the table at Copenhagen that might result in a flow of funds, and it is very important that we establish a deal in that regard. That will be one of the central tests of whether any agreement can stand up to the ambitions that we have for it.

Frank Dobson: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point about 10 per cent., but what we really need is a commitment from all parties in this House that any help given to developing countries coping with climate change must be over and above the aid that goes to them for poverty relief.

Greg Clark: The right hon. Gentleman makes the exact point that I have made in my remarks.
	The final essential element of any outcome at Copenhagen is an urgent agreement on deforestation. Some 15 million hectares of tropical rainforest are lost every year to deforestation. To put that into context, that is an area larger than England. We must secure a deal at Copenhagen to protect the global rainforests, without which it will be impossible to keep warming under a dangerous threshold.
	From the beginning of his leadership, the leader of my party has made it clear that Britain must take a position of leadership on our global as well as our domestic environment. We have talked about that already in our exchanges, and it is nothing new. British Governments throughout the ages have seen it as Britain's role in the world to be a force for progressive change. In a remarkable speech this summer that I commend to all hon. Members, my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary said:
	"The citizens of Britain have always been restless in trying to improve the wider world and global in our outlook."
	That must characterise our ambition in Copenhagen.
	As we get close to Copenhagen, we know that significant outstanding issues remain. The Secretary of State alluded to the question whether the deal would trigger higher contributions from other EU member states. If the deal is to be genuinely global, it is essential that it triggers that pan-European 30 per cent. emissions reduction target and ensures that it is brought into effect. Moreover, we have talked about the temperature requirement, but it is also important that we encourage-as the Secretary of State has said he will-our European partners to rise to the challenge as we have and respect the scientific view of what is required.
	When it comes to the flow of funds for adaptation, it is important that we understand that the numbers used in the agreement must be rigorous. I agree with the Secretary of State that those numbers must not be made up and used just because they sound round and can be easily communicated. The numbers used in the agreement must have some substance to them.
	It is clear that much work remains to be done on important aspects of the problem before Copenhagen begins. With a little more than a month to go, it is right for people to be apprehensive about the task ahead. It is not in anyone's interest to be over-confident, but I began my speech by saying that a number of people are making a parallel with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. On the eve of that conference, John Maynard Keynes, one of the architects of that historic agreement, said that it was
	"better that our projects should begin in disillusion than...end in it".
	I think that we start off from a stronger position than he did, in terms of our optimism about what might come out of the negotiations. I wish the Secretary of State much success in the weeks ahead.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind right hon. and hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions?

Elliot Morley: I welcome the debate and the tone and tenor of contributions from Members on both sides of the House. This is a crucial issue, and the conference in Copenhagen will probably be one of the most important international negotiations that has ever taken place. There are great implications for the future of our country and the international situation. I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the Front-Bench spokesmen for the fact that I might not be able to be in the Chamber for the wind-ups, because I have an engagement in my constituency.
	I wanted to speak in the debate because the conference is so important and its outcome will be vital to us all-and, indeed, to future generations. I welcome the lead that the Government have taken. The fact that the Prime Minister made it clear that he was willing to attend sent an important signal, because I agree that getting an outcome will probably require the involvement of the leaders of countries, given its importance. I agree that the progress that has been made so far has been the result of international leaders engaging through the UN.
	I also welcome the fact that the EU has reached an agreement on funding for adaptation and for help for some of the world's poorest countries that are suffering the most. That must be part of the deal, and it gives a useful lead. It is important that other developed countries add their contributions to that to form part of the overall outcome.
	I accept that the numbers are crucial. They must be based on the science. There must not be a a repeat of Kyoto when several countries chose figures because they were slightly higher than those of some of their rivals. Some countries did a better job of that, and the UK negotiations identified a more realistic number than Canada's, for example. However, although I accept what the Secretary of State says about being realistic, some annexe 1 countries have not made a lot of effort over the years, and that must change.

Graham Stuart: In an otherwise excellent speech, the Secretary of State did not say a great deal about compliance mechanisms, and did not include compliance in the list of key points at the end of his speech. Does the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) agree that without compliance to ensure that people face a sanction if they fail to keep their promises, even if we end up with an agreement that we can celebrate, because it looks strong, that agreement might not lead to the actions that people promise?

Elliot Morley: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There will clearly be an issue regarding compliance. There must be a binding international agreement. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to apply and enforce compliance measures, but I do not dispute that there must be such a mechanism.
	Developing countries, especially the major emerging economies, must show some commitment. That commitment might be different from that which we would accept, as an annexe 1 country, but nevertheless they must demonstrate that they are willing to make a major contribution towards reducing emissions.
	I agree with what has been said about China. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) has joined me in many meetings with Chinese representatives, as have my hon. Friends the Members for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) and for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen). Countries such as China have made an enormous move, and engagement among legislators has been important. There have also been signs of movement from the United States, although not as great as I would like, and smaller signs of movement from India-again, not as great as I would like. It is important to get legislators on side, especially US legislators, because any agreement will have to go through Congress and be ratified. Unless we have the support of legislators, we will find ourselves back in the position at the time of Kyoto when the US was willing to sign up to the agreement, but there was no chance of it getting through Congress.

John Gummer: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that before we can expect developing countries to make the major promises that they need to make, they must have confidence that we have accepted responsibility for causing the problem and profiting from the pollution that we are now suffering?

Elliot Morley: I absolutely accept that point. To be fair to the UK, we have always been clear that we went through a dirty phase of industrialisation and gained the economic benefits of that. We cannot deny the benefits of economic growth to others when that forms part of their policies of poverty alleviation. However, other countries do not necessarily have to go down the path of dirty industrialisation. They could go straight to cleaner technologies, and we can play a role in developing and transferring such technology to other countries.
	I want to focus on the benefits of a low-carbon economy. Two themes come out of discussions with legislators from other countries, especially countries such as America: first, they say that unless there is action from emerging economies, there will be unfair economic competition that will undermine their economies; and, secondly, they talk about the cost that will fall on their individual countries due to moving to a low-carbon economy. However, we always make the point in those discussions that there is no cost-free option, because there will be costs arising from not moving to a low-carbon economy. In addition, they must consider the important factors of security of energy supply and economic sustainability, which can bring benefits in themselves, as well as the absolutely overwhelming environmental arguments.
	Our country could benefit greatly from moving to a low-carbon economy. My region could receive those benefits. The steel plate for wind farm towers is already made in Scunthorpe, and a local company in my constituency maintains and overhauls gearboxes for land-based and offshore wind turbines. The Humber area could be a centre for the low-carbon economy by supporting the growing offshore wind sector, including from the ports of Hull, Grimsby and Immingham. South Yorkshire can offer engineering and design, and we have steel facilities, science and universities, and expertise in the area, including from the oil and gas industry. We also have expertise on carbon capture and storage, and I am really pleased that the EU has committed money to a carbon capture power station at Hatfield, which could form just one part of a big centre for the low-carbon economy involving many thousands of jobs in the Humber. Such a thing could happen in other parts of the country.
	Following the Prime Minister's statement on the European Council, I pointed out in my question to him that if we are to encourage developing countries, in particular, to take the required steps, they will need to see the benefits that they could get from a low-carbon economy. We need to offer encouragement, and the European Union, as a major trading bloc, is in a good position to do that. For example, we could argue for a tariff-free, low-carbon trading zone, whereby products that would benefit energy efficiency or low-carbon energy could enter a country on a tariff-free basis. That would benefit manufacturing in the UK, which is important, and encourage international trade. We already have the important developing carbon market, which brings benefits, and we need measures in the European Union, such as a zero or reduced VAT rate for insulating or low-carbon materials, to provide such encouragement. Other possible measures have recently been discussed, such as a scrappage scheme for boilers, which would generate jobs and trade.
	A great deal can be done, and the European Union is in an excellent position to bring that about. It is also a way of engaging legislators in how they might see the benefits for their own areas. I met some senators from Texas, which, without being unfair, is not the most progressive part of America in the low-carbon economy. However, although they were not hugely enthusiastic about the environmental arguments, they certainly saw the economic arguments and the benefits for their local economy and for people from carbon capture and storage, solar power and smart grids. Indeed, smart grid development in Texas is very advanced. We need to emphasise those points when we hear negative responses from some countries.
	I should like to flag up some issues that, although important, may get lost in the negotiations, given the main focus of the talks. They include deforestation, which has already been mentioned. There has been some welcome progress on tackling deforestation, but what I have heard and read concerns me. We need to get the details right of how we deal with deforestation through the reduced emissions from deforestation-or RED-process; we need the money to go to forest management and restoration; and the most important people to get onside, those who live in and rely on forests, need to receive some share of the investment. Any deal that puts a lot of money into the hands of Governments and never reaches forestry management or local communities could do more harm than good. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to be aware of that, because a deal is important, but a deal at any price could make things worse rather than better.
	The forests issue is linked to ecosystem protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North has been very active on the latter, but it could also get lost in the argument. Internationally, the role of forests and deforestation has been recognised, but wetlands, peat bogs and mangrove swamps also have roles-and not only in mitigation. Some of the effects of rising sea levels, storms and typhoons have been made worse by the removal of mangroves, taking away not only potential mitigation for poor communities, but nurseries for fish, which are very important for commercial fisheries. The ecosystem issue is part of the consideration of how we manage our environment to mitigate the effects of carbon, and it has not had the attention that it deserves. The work that has been done in valuating forests has also been done for ecosystems, but we should not separate the two. They have to be seen together, and that will be one of the challenges for my right hon. Friends.
	My final point is perhaps the most difficult one. Population is an issue, but it is not for us to lecture other countries. This is about improving the economics of developing countries and improving access to education, for women in particular. We have a role to play through our aid programmes, and I agree that the additional funding for adaptation must not be removed from the Overseas Development Administration budget, because we have a role to play in that, too. Part of that role is to recognise that it is in no one's interest for the population to rise from 6 billion to 9 billion. That may not happen, but we should take into account the effects of population increase, because it has many negative effects, not least on the environment, on emissions and on sustainability.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has said and done the right things. The negotiations will be very difficult, but for all of us the long-term consequences of failure are almost unthinkable, and I wish him all the best.

Simon Hughes: I shall start where the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) finished and express our thanks to the Secretary of State. I wish him all the best, and I wish to strengthen his resolve. Indeed, I hope that today encourages him, the Prime Minister and the Government, because those in power today have a responsibility that may not fall to the next Government, and now is the time to make progress.
	All of us recognise that throughout the world there has been a significant movement towards a desire to do business at the conference, which starts a month on Monday. For example, China and India have agreed to put on one side disputes about their border so as to try to reach a common view, and that is fantastic progress. The right hon. Member for Scunthorpe speaks with great authority and experience and can testify to the fact that even states such as Texas, where there is an historical reluctance to act and a conservative position, for reasons that we know, have none the less made some movement on the issue.
	Looking throughout the world, I note that significant players such as the Japanese, as well as the Chinese and Indians, and the Americans, whose signature was absent from the Kyoto treaty, are all coming to the table with more commitment. However, we are a long way from reaching a deal, and I shall return to what my party and our sister parties in Liberal International and throughout Europe have sought to say. It is a great privilege for our group of politicians that the host in Copenhagen is a Prime Minister who comes from the liberal democratic tradition, and he and his colleagues in other European countries have a pivotal role to play. I wish him all the best; he knows the significance of the meeting that he will host in Denmark in a month's time.
	Unlike Mr. Speaker and other colleagues, I was unable to attend the Chamber last Friday when the Youth Parliament held its first meeting here-something that I supported and argued for. Earlier last week, however, I met for the third time representatives of the UK Youth Climate Coalition. I know that  Hansard does not record objects, but I have one here with the slogan that the coalition uses all the time, and it is the question asked of all of us:
	"How old will you be in 2050?"
	It does so because one emissions-reduction target date that European leaders agreed was 2050. In answer to that question, I will be just short of a three-figure number, if I am given the opportunity to be around at all. I respectfully point out that there are others in this Chamber who, if they are still going, will be the other side of that three-figure number. The coalition's point is obvious: targets for 2050, 2030 and 2020 are fine and important, but our real job is to agree something now, because only now can we begin to see those climate changes. That is why we have been so keen to ensure that the country signs up to ambitions such as the 10:10 campaign. Doing things now is important.
	The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who I also wish all the best at the conference, spoke earlier about the high percentage of changes that individuals can make to this country's carbon emissions. Individuals' actions can account for about one third of those emissions, so, while we send our colleagues to negotiate at Copenhagen, we must remind ourselves that we must continue to ensure that we deliver the goods at home.
	On the nature of the agreement, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) chose Bretton Woods as a parallel, and the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe said that Copenhagen may be the most important agreement since the war. I had come to the view-not from any reading, but from thinking back over world history since world war two-that the climate agreement, which I hope will be reached in December, but will certainly be reached as a result of the talks, could be a significant global agreement for a generation and more. People have begun to bandy about the idea that the agreement may be our last opportunity to make decisions that turn around the tanker and reverse the pattern of behaviour, so I think that it is like the peace treaty at the end of the second world war, or Bretton Woods, because it will change the way we do our global business.
	I absolutely endorse what the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe said. The outcome of an agreement will not be detrimental to the developed or industrialised world: it offers us huge potential because of our geographical position-with the tide, wave and wind that surround us and, sometimes, the sun-and because of the abilities of our science, research and engineering sectors, our academic abilities, and our industrial capacity. We have not only the Humber estuary but the Thames estuary, the Tyne and Tees estuaries in the north-east, the Scottish east coast and the fantastic capability around Scotland. We are hugely well placed to deliver the new investment in jobs and opportunities; that applies to other countries, too. I sincerely hope that we recognise that there are positive outcomes not only for us but equally for the developing world.
	I want to make my first substantive point to the Secretary of State by picking up the issue on which I engaged with him in my interventions-the nature of the deal. He was very honest with us, and I am grateful to him for that. It is clear that the deal must lead to two things: a timetable and enforceability. It is no good just having words without the mechanisms for delivering on them. Let me reinforce the view that I have reached, having talked to colleagues in other countries as well as here. It would be better, if it comes to it, to get the outline of a deal in December and then insert the details, the binding agreements and the figures slightly later instead of coming away with something that does not do that.
	However, I am conscious of the politics of other countries, and our own. As we know, we face elections next year, because this Parliament has to end. Next autumn, the United States will have its two-yearly elections. From what I have heard-my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who has been in the States, has described the pressure that the Administration are under on the health agenda-my judgment is that if a deal is not done that the American Administration can deliver soon, the chances of that happening recede given the politics of the second half of next year, because people are always bolder in the first half of their terms of office than later on, and America is such a key player. The message that we want to send to the Prime Minister and to the Secretary of State and his colleagues is that if a final deal is not done in Copenhagen in December, we should-I see that the UN Secretary-General, the Danish Prime Minister and others are hinting that we may have to do this-adjourn and then reconvene to complete the process in the very early part of next year. I hope that the Minister who winds up can endorse that approach.
	It is only fair that I should put to the House and to Ministers our considered view as a party. Our job is to support the Government on these things, of course, but also to embolden them. We have looked at the evidence, listened to the arguments, and come to certain views, some of which involve more ambitious targets than the Government have set, and I owe it to the House to put those on the table.
	Everybody understands-the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells was careful in his wording-that the worst case scenario that we would want to occur in terms of a temperature rise is a 2° increase. However, that must be the outside margin, as much of the science-it does not just come from people such as Lord Stern, who has been cited-suggests that we should be aiming at something nearer to 1.7° increase. I understand that it is easier to argue for 2° because it is a round figure, but we must realise that that is the outside margin and it would be better to have an ambition for something lower.
	In terms of atmospheric concentration, 350 parts per million is now regarded- again by Lord Stern and the scientists who have done the work-as the aim.

Jo Swinson: I very much agree with my hon. Friend about the need to keep the temperature rise to 2°. Does he share my concern that even with stretching targets such as an 80 per cent. reduction by 2015, even with the things that currently seem politically difficult to deliver, that only gives us, according to the science, a 50 per cent. chance of keeping it under 2°, which is already a pretty big risk for us to be taking on?

Simon Hughes: I agree. That is why I take the general approach that the Secretary of State said that he would apply: the precautionary principle. This is not an area where we can risk not taking the action because in the end things might not work out as badly. We have to presume that the accelerating changes will go on accelerating as they have been. My hon. Friend is right: we have to act on the basis of the most dangerous option. That is why it is also important, for example, to try to ensure that we get to 2015 as the date when we stop increasing our emissions and start to bring them back down.

Barry Gardiner: The hon. Gentleman will know that in terms of atmospheric concentration we are already at 387 parts per million. Has he had a chance to consider the Royal Society's statement of earlier this year, which established that unless we reach 350 parts per million within 40 years, we are likely to see the entire global ecosystem of coral reefs collapse? That will be the first collapse of a global ecosystem in the human period. Of the five mass extinctions that have ever taken place on this planet, each has begun with a global ecosystem collapse.

Simon Hughes: Absolutely. The general public at home will not register if we talk about percentage reductions in emissions by certain dates in the future-2050 for young people. They understand it when we get that report about coral reefs, see the fantastically effective pictures of the Maldivian Cabinet meeting underwater when they said, "Look, this will soon be our country if we go on as we are", or hear about the sort of figures that we had this week from the International Union for Conservation of Nature-the most longstanding and well reputed organisation dealing with biodiversity worldwide-about the threat to the species of the world. They are frightening figures that say that 17,291 out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction.
	However, these things are not only relevant when they are a long way off. In my youth, there was the great World Wildlife Fund campaign for the panda. People understand that these things matter. They have concerns internationally about ecosystems, climate and species, but they are also worried when they hear that we may lose bluebells and butterflies in this country, that the east coast and the west coast may not always be there in their present form, and that villages on the Welsh coast or the East Anglian coast may be slipping into the sea. These are real issues. The more we see the effects of climatic conditions being disruptive, whether it is floods in the United Kingdom or desertification in Africa, or the figures that I put to the Secretary of State earlier about the number of likely refugees displaced-we are talking in millions-and the conflicts that could come from that, as this is as much about conflict prevention as about climate crisis being averted, the more we see that these are things we should be concerned about.
	I want to make two more substantive points and then let other Members speak. I am conscious that it is important that the House gathers together to send the strongest message with all the expertise around the Chamber. Let me put bluntly to the Secretary of State the percentages that we think should be put on the table. There should be a commitment to a 40 per cent. reduction over the 1990 levels by 2020: that is where we ought to get to. The European Union has said conditionally that it is willing to go up from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent., but we think that the UK needs to be bolder than that. The Secretary of State indicated that there is opportunity for the EU to make that jump before the Copenhagen discussions. I hope that the EU will move to its stronger position but I hope that the UK may also say that it is willing to go further. We should also set a specific long-term intention to phase out greenhouse gases in this country by 2050.
	Let me ask about funding, because the targets are one thing, but the money is the other. I would like to probe for answers to the questions that I asked the Secretary of State. The financial deal suggested was that €100 billion should be committed over the five years following the end of the Kyoto agreement in 2013, and that we would make our contribution to that.  [ Interruption. ] I am sorry-the Secretary of State is saying that the period is 2013 to 2020. However, we do not yet know how, or the source of that money. It would be helpful if Energy Ministers put on record where the money will come from and the fact that more may be needed.
	It would be useful if Ministers also indicated three other things. First, the money should not be paid through the World Bank, because it does not have the confidence of the developing world. There needs to be a new United Nations fund. Secondly, there may need to be new sources of revenue, and I put it to the Secretary of State that the most obvious one is a levy on the use of fuel by airlines and shipping, which are often untaxed in traditional taxation. That would be self-evidently international and could produce a new pool of resource. However, the Treasury, which is not represented in the Chamber today, would need to sign up to that. I would be grateful if the Chancellor and Treasury Ministers could say before the Copenhagen talks, "We, the Treasury, agree that the United Kingdom will have to make a contribution." I am sure that that would help Energy Ministers.

Elliot Morley: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Treasury has to be engaged, but there will need to be international agreement on shipping with the International Maritime Organisation, and aviation matters will also have to be agreed internationally. That must be on the agenda at Copenhagen.

Simon Hughes: Absolutely, and there is an awareness that those are two huge sectors of international activity that people will need to come to agreement on. I am setting out the context in which they need to deliver.
	Thirdly, may I ask Ministers to be absolutely clear whether any commitments made so far by the UK, such as when the Prime Minister shared the announcement in Brussels the other day, have been announcements of new money? I have seen nothing to suggest that any new UK money has been announced as going into the kitty. I believe that they were re-announcements of earlier pledges, but I stand to be corrected, and if they were not they will be important.
	The Government should make it absolutely clear to all of us-I have heard this plea elsewhere-that the money provided will be additional to overseas development assistance and does not include double counting. There is great suspicion among well informed commentators and those who follow these things that there is currently some double counting in emissions trading receipts and so on.
	Over the next three or four weeks there will be continuing dialogue, and the last formal negotiating session took place the other day in Barcelona. I hope that this country will go further than it has before, and I believe the Secretary of State and his colleagues will gain credit at home and abroad for doing so. Just as we showed our leadership at the time of the industrial revolution by starting a new generation of successful economies, if the UK, as one of the two major historically responsible countries, can be really brave-even if some of the messages that we send might have cost obligations for us-the rewards will be great and the public will recognise that. We can afford to be bolder and braver than we have been, and I look forward to the Government ratcheting up the pressure and working on other countries, particularly the big ones, to deliver a braver outcome in the next few weeks.

Frank Dobson: Today's debate is general and wide-ranging, and I will leave it to others to deal with many of the issues involved. It is clear that the climate is changing and that in most parts of the world it is changing for the worse. I wish to concentrate my attention on the one place that is most vulnerable to climate change and has the largest population at risk-Bangladesh, a country a little larger than England and with nearly three times our population.
	Most of Bangladesh is formed of the delta of not one but two of the world's major rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, as they discharge their waters into the bay of Bengal. As a result, most of the people of Bangladesh live on one of the ultimate frontiers of the world-a frontier between land and water and between the works of humankind and the forces of nature.
	In recent years, Bangladesh has been successful in developing manufacturing industry, but most of its people are still dependent on the products of the land. The abundant water irrigates their crops and the silt renews the soil. That is in the good times. In the bad times, the self-same waters build up, get out of control and wreak destruction and death over huge areas. To put it in some perspective, the last major flooding extended over an area almost equal to the distance between London and Manchester. The scale is enormous.
	Those dangerous and damaging waters come from three different sources, sometimes at different times and sometimes in combination. The monsoon rains over Bangladesh, the meltwaters of the Himalayas and cyclones from the bay of Bengal all cause flooding. All three sources of flooding are beyond the control of the Government and people of Bangladesh. All that can be done is to try to protect against them.
	In the face of those natural disasters, over the centuries the people of Bangladesh have shown a resilience unmatched anywhere else on earth with the possible exception of Holland. Land lost to the rivers or the sea has been reclaimed, new crops planted and replacement homes built. More recently, with help from the UK and other donor Governments, limited steps have been taken to provide storm refuges and lift the level of the land.
	Until very recently, all that happened in response to occasional, sudden and rather unpredictable crises. Not any more. Climate change threatens to melt the snows and glaciers of the Himalayas more quickly than in the past, and it is likely to affect the monsoons and increase the frequency of the cyclones. Above all, it threatens an inexorable rise in sea level. That is not just a future threat-it is causing problems now in Bangladesh. I am glad to say that our Government, already the principal aid donor to Bangladesh, have recognised the special need for extra help over and above the funds that we contribute to the anti-poverty programme. They are already providing £75 million to support climate change adaptation and have committed to providing more than £100 million over the next few years to help people maintain their livelihoods in the areas most vulnerable to climate change.
	Those are immediate measures intended to deal with the problems that are arising now, but the longer-term protection of the people of Bangladesh will require funds and attention on an altogether vaster scale. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recognised that fact when, this summer, he urged the developed countries of the world to commit themselves to providing funds rising to $100 billion a year to help developing countries cope with the problems of climate change and continue to improve the standard of living of their people without disproportionately raising their emission levels. Just as he marshalled the effective worldwide response to the crisis that the bankers created, he has given the lead in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, challenging other world leaders to accept or better his proposals and to join him in personally attending. He recently managed to get the EU Heads of Government to accept a fund of $87 billion-not the $100 billion we were hoping for, but I rather suspect that without the $100 billion target, the eventual total would have been far lower.
	There is no doubt that help on that scale is needed. Otherwise, about half the population of Bangladesh-70 million people-could be affected by flooding every year and a tenth of the low-lying land could be lost for ever. Therefore, vast civil engineering works will be required: villages must be raised above flood levels; more flood and cyclone centres need to be built; embankments must be raised; and probably equally importantly, crops capable of coping with the occasional ingress of salt and brackish water must be developed.
	Just one glance at the map of Bangladesh shows both the scale and the complexity of the problem and any measures intended to deal with it. Climate change will cause problems in our country, but without wishing to diminish their significance in any way, they will pale into insignificance compared with the problems of Bangladesh. The white cliffs of Dover are not likely to be engulfed, but the chars, sandbanks, mudbanks and riverbanks of Bangladesh will be unless we help the resilient and talented people of that country to build the protection they need against the disastrous and deadly consequences of climate change.
	Of course, besides helping Bangladesh to cope with its problems, we need worldwide action to restrict the process of climate change. Only by combining protection and prevention will Bangladesh be saved for humankind. Nothing else will do.

Peter Ainsworth: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), who is absolutely right to draw attention to the way in which climate change threatens soonest and most severely some of the poorest people in the world.
	This has so far been an extremely interesting debate. Incidentally, I am very happy to tell the House that earlier today, the Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill, a private Member's Bill, which I had the honour to introduce some months ago, passed its final stages in the upper House. I should like to record my personal gratitude not only to the Ministers and officials in the Department of Energy and Climate Change who helped and advised on the Bill, but to the noble Lord Whitty, who so skilfully steered the measure through another place.
	We have heard already, in particular from the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), about the threat to global biodiversity and natural things. When I had the pleasure of hosting an event the other day in this place for the organisation Plantlife, of which I am a trustee-it published a new book called "The Ghost Orchid Declaration" about the plight of wild plants in our country-I was vividly reminded that one in five of our wild plants is currently threatened with extinction. Each county in our country is losing, on average, two of its wild plants every year.
	Obviously, the causes of that are complex. It is to do with unsustainable farming practices, a planning system that does not understand the needs of wild things, poor management, and in some cases climate change. Above all, it is to do with neglect. There is always something more important, a more pressing agenda, or someone making a row about something other than the plight of wild plants. I mention that only because I think something rather similar has affected the debate about climate change for very many years. It is 17 years since the Rio conference, and today we are having a discussion in the Chamber almost as if it never happened.

Andrew George: It is also to do with the issue of invasive plants-Plantlife has done some excellent work in that field-which are particularly prevalent in the UK. The Government introduced a horticultural code of practice in 2005 that was intended to get on top of the problem, but this country's indigenous species, particularly flora, are very severely threatened in many areas by invasive species, which need to be dealt with.

Peter Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Of course, people in his part of the world suffer from invasive species every summer on a grand scale-they are usually towing caravans! He is absolutely right, and Plantlife has done important work in drawing attention to the problem of invasive species.

John Gummer: Does my hon. Friend agree that the example he uses is another pointer to the fact that we cannot think of climate change on its own? Climate change is merely a symptom of the fact that we, as human beings, are living in a way that is absolutely unsustainable. We have to deal with that, even if it is nothing to do with climate change.

Peter Ainsworth: I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. The fundamental point is that we need to learn again to live within the limits that nature has given us. If we continue to pretend that nature is limitless, which it clearly is not, particularly bearing in mind global population growth, which has been mentioned, we will continue to put our future and the future of everything else that lives on this planet at risk.
	I drew attention to the plight of wild plants in our country to make a broader point on what has affected the global negotiations on climate change. I must say that I looked with a degree of despair at the consequences and outcome of the tortuous negotiations that took place within the European Union last week, and at the communiqué that came out of them, which did not fill me with enormous hope.
	It is commonly said that sorting out climate change is about saving the planet, but as I have said before, it is not about that, because the planet is perfectly capable of looking after itself. What we are really talking about-this has been mentioned by right hon. and hon. Members-is saving human lives, civilisation, culture and the values that we human beings have tended to try to hold dear over very many centuries. Watching this slow process grinding towards some sort of fudge at Copenhagen fills me with a certain amount of despair, as I said.
	It may well be that today's generation of politicians is not up to this task, but unfortunately, only today's generation of politicians is being asked to undertake it. After all, in the end, they are politicians and not saints. In democracies in particular, we know how easy it is for agendas to be tugged away, and for more pressing, immediate issues to dominate. All I can say to that is-we know this from Stern and other commentators-unless we take action at Copenhagen or very soon after this coming December, the difficulties that we will collectively face in dealing with the problem will only get worse and more expensive, and I suspect that they will involve a degree of coercion that many people might find unpalatable. There is a need to take action now.
	I was disheartened by the comments on recent negotiations by Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who said:
	"Science has been moved aside and the space has been filled up with political myopia with every country...trying to protect its own...short-term interests."
	If that is a correct reflection of the way those negotiations are going, it is a disastrous state of affairs.
	Like other hon. Members, I was delighted with the Secretary of State's speech-he was indeed honest and said that negotiations were not going well. It is not within his power to make them go well, or indeed within the power of anyone in the Chamber, but it is essential that they do so.
	Even within the European Union, we have seen divisions, arguments and disputes, and the inability to come up with clear numbers because certain member countries are not really signed up-I name Poland in particular. If countries within the developed European Union cannot come up with robust numbers and instead must come up with a fudgy expression such as "paying our fair share", how on earth can we expect the developing world to look upon us seriously? How are we going to bridge the gap between €100 billion-a figure that has been put around-for adaptation and mitigation, and €400 billion, which is the rough figure that the developing world came up with earlier this year? We are a very long way from reaching an accommodation on that.
	I do not blame the Government for that. Indeed, I commend them on the way in which they have handled the approach to Copenhagen and the international context of climate change. It is the domestic arena that has seen some significant failures, prevarications, contradictions and delays. On the international agenda, the Government have done as good a job as could be expected.
	However, the Prime Minister said after last week's negotiations:
	"Europe is leading the way, making these bold proposals".
	He continued:
	"The major decision to come out of this is we're leading the way on climate change negotiations".
	Those words do not fill me with enormous enthusiasm. "Leading the way" is not a decision in any case, although it may be a fact. Depressingly, it may be true that Europe is leading the way, but-as I have tried to suggest-we are not doing a good job of persuading even our own people that there is a task in hand for the world leaders to consider in just a few weeks.
	The US has been mentioned, and it is in danger of getting seriously bogged down in its domestic political agenda. The Bill there has stalled because of problems in the Senate. If the US comes to Copenhagen without a clear agenda, what message will that send to the developing world and, more particularly, to China? China has been making much more positive noises, and that is greatly to be welcomed, but if the Americans do not step up to the plate with some robust proposals, what incentive will China have to go the extra mile? While all this haggling is going on, the developing world is looking on with scepticism, and that is also a matter for concern.
	Nobody now expects a robust or proper result from the Copenhagen discussions. Even the delightfully named Yvo de Boer, the head of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, has said:
	"It is physically impossible to complete every detail of the treaty at Copenhagen".
	The talk now, as we heard from the Secretary of State, is for political agreement, not legal agreement.
	So we are haggling over money-and the numbers do matter-but I come back to the question of priorities. Earlier this week, the taxpayer, courtesy of the Government, wrote a cheque for £35 billion to the Royal Bank of Scotland-in a single day, we wrote a cheque for the same amount as we are likely to spend in 2020 to deal with climate change in the whole year. That illustrates a strange sense of proportion. Important though RBS is, it is not as important in the long run as saving human values, culture and civilisation or all the other opportunities provided by climate change, such as promoting green energy, jobs, energy security and so on. Let us get the situation into perspective. When I heard about the latest RBS bail-out I was reminded of an American commentator who wrote:
	"Mother Nature doesn't do bail outs."
	If I sound a little depressed about the prospects for Copenhagen, it is because it is a depressing outlook. Copenhagen offers the best chance of a binding, clear and just agreement, but it is not quite the last chance. I wholly agree with the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey, who made the point-I think that the Secretary of State agreed-that it would be much better not to have a deal at Copenhagen if it is a bad deal. Instead, it would be preferable to have an agreement that took us seriously and quickly towards a proper deal at a later date if that is what needs to happen. At least the negotiations in the run-up to Copenhagen, and the summit itself, may remind world leaders of the science-the Secretary of State was right to remind the House of the science-and the urgency of addressing this matter.
	In all of the haggling over detail, let us not forget the overarching objective. The one thing that can move the world forward to a better and safer place is the establishment of a robust global price for carbon. The European emissions trading scheme, with all its flaws, weaknesses and failure thus far to deliver, is none the less a model that can be adapted, changed and made to work, not only in Europe but around the world. If we put a price on carbon, every decision we take can be taken within a logical and rational context. We could make choices about whether we wanted expensive options that involve fossil fuels and high-carbon activities, or alternatives-which already exist in many cases, technologically-that are cheaper because they do not involve the carbon pollution of old-fashioned technologies. Such a scheme could raise many billions of pounds, dollars or euros-whichever currency one chooses-and would certainly play a key role in dealing with the problem of the rainforests, which has rightly been touched on today.
	A global tax is advocated by some. Tax may well have a role to play within national Governments, but there is no global structure for taxation and that is therefore not an option. In the end, the markets will have to become a power for good. I know that that is a paradox, in that it is unbridled market activity that, over many years, has got us into the mess in the first place. But with the right framework in place-and it is politicians who need to put it there-the markets can deliver. The politicians' only job in this debate is to get the framework right. If we get the framework right, the market, human choice and rationality will do the rest. Put like that, it all sounds rather simple.

Mark Lazarowicz: It is appropriate that I should follow the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) in two respects. First, although his speech was rightly pessimistic, it highlighted the challenge that the world faces at Copenhagen and in negotiations to follow. Those negotiations clearly will not reach the outcome that we desired, and therefore it is right to be realistic about where we are, but also right to consider how we can move forward over the next few months.
	Secondly, the hon. Gentleman highlighted the importance of market mechanisms in, for example, putting a price on carbon and, as he may know, I have been doing some work with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Prime Minister on how we move towards a global carbon market. I know no one who suggests that a carbon market would provide the entire solution, but I have come to the view that putting a price on carbon through a system of tight caps on emissions by developed countries is an essential part of the package. It would also help to provide the resources that the hon. Gentleman said need to flow to developing countries.
	The hon. Gentleman was right to be if not pessimistic, then realistic about the challenges that face us. I share the recognition across the House of the lead that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues have taken internationally in working towards an agreement at Copenhagen. If one speaks to parliamentary colleagues from other countries, there is no doubt that they recognise that the work that the British Government have done in trying to achieve international agreement has kept up momentum and led to recognition of the need to achieve a strong agreement at Copenhagen or thereafter.
	I also welcome the cross-party consensus here today and in the debate running up to Copenhagen. There is no doubt that the position of the Government internationally is strengthened when other countries know that they speak for a broad consensus within the British political system.
	The Secretary of State and his colleagues have been right to emphasise the importance of trying to seek a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen. That is certainly what we need. The emphasis appears to be moving from a legally binding agreement to what is described as a political agreement with numbers-in other words, a political agreement with specific commitments from developed countries and, more importantly, developing countries to emissions reductions. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that we need to achieve a legally binding agreement or treaty.
	In one respect, it could be argued that a comprehensive political agreement to which countries are genuinely signed up would perhaps be better than a legally binding agreement that we do not intend to implement-that was obviously part of the experience of Kyoto. In that sense, a political agreement at Copenhagen with clear commitments would be a major step forward. We should not lose sight of the fact, however, that in my view and that of most in the Chamber, I am sure, it has to be followed up with a legally binding agreement, with a compliance mechanism to ensure that countries fulfil those objectives.
	I would be interested to hear from the Minister the Government's view on the process that they envisage being put in place to ensure that, whatever agreement is reached at Copenhagen-lets us hope that it is a substantial one-negotiation work will continue with haste and determination thereafter. I have heard people talking about a conference reconvening in three or six months, or perhaps not until the next annual conference in Mexico towards the end of 2010. It is important that momentum continues beyond Copenhagen, whatever the outcome of the negotiations.
	I am sure that all in the Chamber know that an agreement is vital. There is a number of essential elements to any agreement: a recognition of the science; a commitment to a rise in temperatures of no more than 2° C; a recognition of equity for developing countries; the provision of the finance necessary for developing countries; a clear indication of numbers for the emission reductions expected from developed and major developing countries, as I mentioned; and of course an agreement to establish it on a legal framework at an early date.
	It is important, when we have such discussions, to balance the correct appreciation of the seriousness of our position, which the hon. Member for East Surrey rightly emphasised, with the need not to become so pessimistic that people are driven into thinking that action is not worth taking. The Secretary of State, in his opening remarks, was right to emphasise the positive aspects of moving to a low-carbon economy. Mention was made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) of the opportunities, particularly along the coast of east Scotland. I represent a constituency there and I know that hundreds of people are already working there in renewable industries of various sorts. They are already involved in many initiatives showing how moving to a low-carbon economy can be good for the economy and the future.
	We need to emphasise to the public that changing to a low-carbon economy undoubtedly means substantial changes in the way we live, but that it does not necessarily mean moving to a hair-shirt existence. It is a question of changing our lifestyles and in some respects, one could argue, improving our lifestyles, if we change our lives to reflect the needs of a low-carbon society.
	Having said that it is important to be positive, we must also recognise that public concern about the matter is driven by an understandable fear of what climate change will mean. The public are right to be frightened about what runaway climate change will mean-all of us in the Chamber, I am sure, are frightened about it too. That is another point that needs to be borne in mind when we think about what will happen after Copenhagen if there is not a substantial agreement, and if the leaders leave with no agreement or-this would be worse-a sham agreement.
	I am sure that all hon. Members have been contacted over the past few months and years by hundreds, if not thousands, of people in their constituencies concerned about climate change. As we all know, there is a strong movement in society of people concerned about it. They want our leaders, political community and world leaders to ensure that we get the right type of agreement at Copenhagen. If we do not come up with a strong agreement in Copenhagen, and if we do not build the mechanisms to ensure that the agreement is followed through-with detailed agreements thereafter-we run the risk of creating immense disillusion among hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in this country and other countries who are relying on world leaders finally to face up to the challenges that must be faced if we are to tackle climate change.
	If we fail to come up with an agreement at Copenhagen, we will be doing a great disservice to the political process. The disillusionment that people have, for other reasons, with the political process will spread to those who expect us to come up with solutions at Copenhagen. It is important for so many reasons that we come up with a strong agreement and that we indicate that a broader political agreement can be followed up with a specific lead agreement thereafter.
	The fact that there is a strong civil society, not just in our country but internationally, that is so concerned about the issue is a source of encouragement as well. I have seen develop over the past year or so a genuine world community interested in such matters. There are movements in different countries that listen to, rely upon and work with political and environmental movements in other countries.

Michael Weir: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Lazarowicz: In a second.
	That political movement is a force that will have its influence felt at Copenhagen, not just through the thousands of people from non-governmental organisations who will be lobbying leaders at Copenhagen, but because they reflect the concerns of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The leaders of the world community do not-

Peter Lilley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Lazarowicz: In a second. If the leaders of the world community do not reflect those concerns at Copenhagen, they will have to answer to their electorates and constituents. Equally, the pressure from those constituents and communities will be a powerful force to concentrate the minds of world leaders in trying to get something decent out of Copenhagen.

Michael Weir: I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I agree with much of it. However, does he not agree that there is a bigger danger in not coming to an agreement in Copenhagen-not for those engaged with the climate change debate, but for the vast majority of people who have simply been told that we need to do this? If we come away from Copenhagen without an agreement, what will the impact be on them?

Mark Lazarowicz: The impact on everyone in the entire world community will be serious, regardless of whether they are personally involved. That emphasises the need for an agreement to be reached at Copenhagen.

Peter Lilley: The hon. Gentleman seems extraordinarily complacent, like everyone else who has spoken so far, about the fact that the proportion of people concerned about climate change in this country is now lower than in any other country in the world and has fallen by one third over the past year. Why does he suppose that this is so, and why does he ignore it?

Alan Whitehead: It's because of people like you.

Mark Lazarowicz: My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, suggests that people such as the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) might have a role to play in that situation. The right hon. Gentleman's observation is not my experience. I see in my constituency growing interest in such issues. Interestingly, even during an economic recession, when traditionally people are more interested in bread-and-butter issues of the economy than in saving the planet and climate change, I find that people are still as interested as they were a year or two ago. I believe that public concern is greater than ever before. That is the basis on which I proceed in Parliament and my constituency.

Graham Stuart: Although I might take a different view on the broader issue from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), I, too, think that the hon. Gentleman is being complacent about the level of public engagement. It is a very major issue for a minority of people, but it has impinged very little on the vast majority of people. Does he have any thoughts on why we have not been more successful as a society-I do not want to make a partisan point about the Government-in increasing understanding of the risks threatening us? I say risks without wanting to play down the uncertainties.

Mark Lazarowicz: I am in danger of being diverted from the main thrust of my argument down a road that, although dealing with an important point, perhaps does not deal with the essential point that I want to make. In so far as what the hon. Gentleman said is the case, it is up to political leaders-Members of Parliament and Governments-to try to get the message across. However, my experience is that the public concern is still there and I do not think that it will go away. Indeed, the realities of what is happening in the outside world as a result of climate change will always bring the issue back into political debate as a central part of demands for action.
	Given our importance in Parliament as politicians representing the wider community, it is also important that we are not, to coin a phrase, too complacent. It is good to have the degree of consensus that exists in the Chamber today, but we should always be wary of allowing political consensus not so much to mask genuine divisions, but to lead us into failing to recognise that we need to make difficult choices as political parties, or that we cannot always find an easy solution on climate change that will please everybody.
	I do not want to reopen the discussion that took place in the Chamber on Tuesday, but there were times in the debate on the private Member's Bill dealing with wind turbines when some hon. Members seemed to be trying to have it both ways, by jumping on the bandwagon of opposing wind turbines, but at the same time professing their commitment to tackling climate change. We cannot continue indefinitely in a world where we are in favour of tackling climate change, but at the same time are against wind turbines or in favour of airport expansion or whatever policy we regard from our position as more important than tackling climate change. Politicians also have a role to play in being honest with the electorate, which might answer the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) about how we re-engage the public on the issue.
	However, my intention was not to introduce too much discord into this debate, even though I appear to have provoked some. I want to accentuate the positive in our discussions in the Chamber so far and the opportunities of reaching an agreement internationally. In many respects great progress has been made internationally. Mention has been made of the change in the positions of the Japanese and Australian Governments. Although the US Administration's position is problematic, to put it mildly, last year's change in the US Administration nevertheless had effected a dramatic change to the background to the international negotiations on tackling climate change.
	As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said in one of his interventions, if we can start turning the world round towards a low-carbon economy, we may be able to move much more quickly in that direction than some people appreciate. If we find that we can do that more easily than some people thought, we will be able to accelerate progress towards the change in our economic system and our lifestyles that is required.
	Equally, as the hon. Member for East Surrey emphasised, there will be serious issues if we do not get progress at Copenhagen. We are running out of time. If the world does not come to a serious agreement within the next few months, we will undoubtedly reach the point not where we are talking about a 2° C rise in temperatures, but where even a 4° C rise might seem on the low side. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, if we are in that situation, we are talking about irreversible damage and destruction to civilisation, the planet and our very species. That must always be a reminder to us all of the urgency of reaching a decision and a comprehensive and substantial agreement at Copenhagen and in the months thereafter.

John Gummer: Let me first declare an interest. I represent a constituency with 74 miles of coastline. Therefore, I sometimes feel that I am talking about a local concern. Like the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), I also need to make an apology, in that I may not be here for the wind-ups. I have apologised to the Minister for that.
	We have to start by accepting that climate change is a symptom of an unsupportable way of living that we, as the human race, have developed. It has become unsupportable because we have democratised it. It is possible for a few people to live totally selfishly, but that is increasingly impossible if we all operate as if we have a planet and a quarter-or three planets, if we continue in this way because it is a fact of life that democracy and the spreading of wealth demands more from our planet than it can support.
	Therefore, we must recognise that, although climate change may be the thing that is prodding us, we have to find an answer to a series of things that demand a change in our lifestyle, and not only in the rich countries but throughout the world. Now that there are more middle-class people in India than in western Europe, we have to recognise that the issue is not about rich countries and poor countries, but about those who consume huge amounts and those who do not, who may both be in the same poor country.
	We also have to recognise that we are under a security pressure. We should not kid ourselves about this: we are dependent for our energy on five of the least stable countries in the world. That is not a very sensible position to be in, and any sane person would try to move away from it. Whatever our views about climate change-one of my right hon. Friends will no doubt put forward his views, with which I deeply disagree-they do not matter. They do not matter because we will have to act anyway, so let us get off that argument and on to how we achieve that end. One way is to recognise the interrelationship of all the issues-what happens in the forest and what happens in the oceans, which are being destroyed by the pollution that we are putting into them. All that has to be faced in a joined-up way.
	What are the challenges? First, there is a huge challenge in our view for the rest of the world. We have a historical responsibility for what is happening. Not only is a bigger proportion of current climate change the fault of us here in Britain, because of our leadership in the industrial revolution, but the way in which we operate has changed our relationship with nature, and many of the important decisions were ones that our experts and leaders made. Let us therefore face that responsibility. We have grabbed too great a share of what the planet can carry.
	That means that we ought to recognise that we must make it possible not only for us to meet our responsibilities, but for others to meet theirs. That is why I said to the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe that those two things must always be said together if we are to get support from developing countries. However, not only should we think about rich countries and poor countries, or rich people and poor people within the same country; we should also remember that there is an overall concept of social justice, which is crucial if we are to deliver what we need to deliver at Copenhagen.

Peter Ainsworth: I know that my right hon. Friend is not always a huge enthusiast for the workings of the Church of England, but will he take this opportunity to congratulate the Archbishop of Canterbury on his leadership in bringing together representatives of all the main faiths in the United Kingdom to produce a document that calls for tackling climate change as a moral imperative?

John Gummer: I am certainly happy to do that, and I hope that my hon. Friend will also congratulate His Holiness the Pope on doing precisely the same thing on a world basis.
	If I may say so, I was a little unhappy about the mutterings from the Secretary of State, whom I much admire, when he complained that Keynes, Hayek and Thatcher were all quoted together. I will take any support for what is so magnificent a quest, and we should be interested that so many great minds have committed themselves to dealing with the issues before us. So, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), and his point leads me to say that, even in regard to small things, we need to face these facts.
	I must declare an interest: I am the chairman of a water company, one of whose subsidiaries is the only water company to be allowed compulsory metering. The reason for that is that we do not have any water. I refused to have compulsory metering until there was a socially fair tariff, because we cannot ask poor people to carry a heavier burden than those who are rich. We therefore have to accept that social justice is an essential part of delivering the climate change solutions that we need, and we need to ensure that that happens in every part of the world- [ Interruption. ] If I may say so, those smug faces on the Labour Back Benches should recognise that social justice is not a private deal among certain kinds of Labour Members. There are many people on both sides of the House who have talked about and worked for social justice all their political lives, so let us have a little less of that. We have to do this together in our various ways. Some of us happen to think that capitalism delivers social justice more effectively than other systems. That is a matter of argument, but let us face the fact that our aim must be the same. It is better not to belittle others when they happen to put their views forward.
	That is also important in recognising the problem of population. Those who have read  The Economist this week will have seen the interesting articles on the fertility rate. There are now two major parts of India-Tamil Nadu and Kerala-in which the population is not reduplicating itself, and the birth rate is below two children per family. The reason for that is the improvement in the standard of living. The only way to deal with the population issue is to recognise that it is not a question of telling poor people not to have more children; rather, it is about making poor people rich enough not to need them.

Barry Gardiner: I heartily endorse the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. Is he aware that Kerala is also the state with the highest literacy rate in India, and that for every two years that a girl stays on in education, she has one fewer child?

John Gummer: As the hon. Gentleman suggests, as people's economic position improves, they are able to see how to improve their family life in ways other than having enough children to bring in the harvest and to look after the older generation because there is no alternative. That is a crucial issue, and women's education is at the heart of it.
	It is necessary for us to take the moral high ground, but that should not stop us thinking about the self-interest involved. If Britain wants to be in the same position in the future that the industrial revolution put us into in the past, we really must accept the green revolution. That was the whole burden of the report produced by the Quality of Life group, which I had the honour to chair. The report made it clear that there was an economic imperative to deliver a low-carbon economy.
	The thing that worries me is that the United States is now beginning to understand that, and that it can win. Indeed, business in the United States is well ahead of the present Administration in that regard, and light years ahead of ex-Vice President Cheney. If we do not keep up, that latecomer will corner the very markets that ought to be ours. We ought to remember this serious self-interest-as long as we do not forget that the first and foremost issue is our moral responsibility towards the rest of the world, and towards our children and grandchildren.
	That approach demands leadership, and we need to recognise how difficult it is for some people to show such leadership. After all, the United States has a large number of people who do not believe in climate change, and half its population do not believe in evolution. It is very difficult to deal with people with that kind of attitude. Just try talking to members of the Democratic Unionist party on this issue: they do not believe that life goes back more than 80,000 years, so it is impossible to talk to them about 400,000 years of proof that the climate is changing. We clearly have problems in this country, but there are certainly greater problems in the United States.
	Business is demanding action, however, and this is why I want to support the point made earlier to the Secretary of State that Copenhagen is crucial for business. Businesses want to know that, when they invest, that investment will be honoured, if I may put it like that. Therefore, in the discussions ahead it is important to have an all-party consensus-there are one or two people who have a different view; that is perfectly all right; there are always a few on the fringes-but achieving that consensus must not stop us from trying to help the Minister of state move further forward.
	When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, I was much helped by Greenpeace. At the time, the Labour party was not frightfully keen on the environment-I am sorry to say that there was not much pressure from the Labour party then-so I was pressured by Greenpeace. That helped me to say to my Cabinet colleagues, "Look, we really have got to move"-otherwise, they would not have seen why. Similarly, we have to help the Minister now, so I hope she will not mind my saying that there one or two things that I think the Government could do very soon-I hope in advance of Copenhagen-to show that we are doing at home some of the things that we ought to be doing.
	I will not go back to the issue of the third runway for London airport, except to say that I find it incredible that anyone seriously still wants to go ahead with that in the circumstances of climate change. I hope that the Minister will recognise that a bit more joined-up government would help. I received a letter from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs explaining why it is in general in favour of doing something about hydrofluorocarbons, but not quite at the moment and not altogether, and perhaps there will be this and that. Industry is stopping using HFCs, so why cannot we follow and simply say that we will not have HFCs after a certain date and we will be leaders in Europe on that issue? The answer is no because there are many people low down in all sorts of ministries finding what I have always called "better not Ministers' answers" to all these things. That is why I ask the Minister to do all she can to try to make us more joined-up about these matters.
	I thought it a pity not to accept the 10:10. I felt that that gave out the wrong signal. It was the wrong signal when talking about biodiversity and the marine world to say that we would not protect ecosystems. The Government must be more careful to try to give the right signals on every issue. I say that as someone who has been a staunch supporter of the big things that the Government have done and as someone who will not attack Ministers for the work they have done, as recognised throughout the world. It helps, however, if one is prepared to say some of those things about the wrong signals.
	When it comes to the Liberal Democrats, it helps if some of us tell them that it is no longer any good saying that we are prepared to fight climate change on every basis except nuclear power. When they say, "We can have everything else, but not nuclear power", it suggests that nuclear power is somehow worse than climate change. I do not think that nuclear power is enough: I have two nuclear power stations in my constituency and I am looking forward to having two more, and my locality is in favour of it. I do not mind all that. Let us face it, nuclear is an interim measure, but I just think that we have to support all the things that we need to have.

Simon Hughes: rose-

John Gummer: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as I have had this argument with him before. He is wrong, and I am sorry about it, but one day he will find out why he is wrong. The fundamental reason why he is wrong is that we cannot afford to put second-order issues in front of the major issue that lies before us.
	That brings me to saying a few words about the Treasury. The Treasury is endemically opposed to any long-term decisions about anything. I remember winning the battle over the landfill tax when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and believed in it. I recall being there when he turned to one of those superior mandarins and said, "I am very sorry, but we are going to do it. I do not care. I am in favour of pushing the market, which is what a tax on landfill would do". I saw the awful look on the face of the mandarin who had finally been caught out and told, "We're going to do this, because it's right; we're going to do it because it is necessary in the long term". That kind of decision making is what we need in the Government today. That is why I am always sorry that a Treasury Minister is not compulsorily placed on the Treasury Bench, which would force him to listen to this debate.
	What a pity it is, too, that all those people up in the Press Gallery who chat about the minutiae and bits and pieces of the Westminster village, who write about all the silliness and who make all the jokes, are not here today to report the real issue. This is the real issue. We know exactly why the public are not frightened about climate change as they ought to be: it is because the press have ceased to realise that, as Lord Reith rightly recognised, part of their job is to inform people about matters that are important in a form that enables them to understand.

Peter Lilley: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

John Gummer: I will not, because I do not have enough time.

Peter Lilley: My right hon. Friend has mentioned me a number of times.

John Gummer: If I give way now, I will not be given any extra time.
	I want to say something very hard to the Government. The Department of Energy and Climate Change has been brave in many ways, but the Department for Transport is about as brave as a chicken. It finds it terribly difficult to move on anything. Indeed, Ministers in Departments across the board are not moving at the same speed as the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
	I say this to the Minister of State: if we are to lead in Europe-and my goodness, we need to be in Europe and be an active part of the European Union in order to achieve these ends-we really must show people that we are doing more at home than we are at present. Let us try to match our words abroad with the reality of courage back at home. I ask the Minister to pledge a simple word: courage. Courage now, courage tomorrow, courage every day. That means asking what is the brave, right thing to do, rather than what is the electorally easy thing to do, even in the run-up to a general election.

Colin Challen: It is a great pleasure to follow the distinguished right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who seems to hit more bases in one short speech than the rest of us put together, even if some of those bases are slightly awry. I may return to that point later. It was also a pleasure to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) talk about Bangladesh, partly because the all-party parliamentary climate change group of the Westminster Parliament is currently conducting an inquiry jointly with the Bangladeshi Parliament's all-party climate change group. We hope to publish our report just in time for Copenhagen.
	It has been said many times this afternoon that the Copenhagen process seemed likely to move-in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) during climate change questions this morning-at the pace of an arthritic sloth. We have a cartload of low expectations from a conference that was previously billed as the last chance saloon. Once the negotiations started in earnest-once the poker game had begun-all the high-flown expressions of ambition and aspiration seem to have been blown out of the window. Now that people have been asked to put their chips on the table, we find that those chips appear to be non-existent. In the words of President Obama, COP 15 is now merely a "significant step". Others have referred to it as merely a window of opportunity, but in my view that should probably read "widow of opportunity". It certainly seems likely to prove a missed opportunity.
	As I said in an intervention earlier, in Barcelona this week the African group engaged in what some described as a walk-out and others termed a difference of opinion which caused them not to attend a meeting. In any event, the fact is that they are extremely disappointed that the annexe 1 countries are not coming up with the numbers: the chips on the table. One wonders why we should expect the African continent, or many other developing regions, to have any trust in our promises, given that-as we have seen in recent days-the European Union, while still making these great promises, has found it so difficult to deliver.
	The United States, thankfully, is moving at quite a rapid pace to escape the eight years of total inactivity on climate change that occurred under George W. Bush, but what it is offering seems to me to be far too little.
	The headline figure of the Waxman-Markey Bill appears to be a 4 per cent. cut in carbon emissions, against a 1990 baseline, by 2020. Given that a 5 per cent. global cut was talked about at Kyoto, the United States ambition must be set in context; it is not high enough. Even though that over-1,000-page Bill, which contains many other very good measures, has now slipped through the House of Representatives with the slenderest of margins, the overall ambition seems minimal. If the Americans do not increase their ambitions, I cannot understand why the Chinese would want to put their chips on the table. In those circumstances, why on earth would the European Union want to pursue its higher intended budgets? There are competition issues, and many business lobbies would exercise a great deal of sway over that.
	What does all the delay mean? What does it amount to? Scientists are already talking about us being committed to a 2.4° increase in temperature, even if we stop all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions today. Our commitment, of course, is to try to contain the increase to less than 2°. Professor Schellnhuber, who is Angela Merkel's climate change adviser and a main member of the IPCC, has illustrated how serious this problem is. He said that if emissions peak in 2010-next year-we will need an annual cut of 2 per cent. if we are to halve global emissions by 2050, relative to 1990. If the peak occurs in 2015, which is when the IPCC says that we should reach it, the annual cut required increases to 3.6 per cent. If we peak in 2020, which is the most likely possibility in the mind of a realistic optimist, that translates into a 6 per cent. annual cut in greenhouse gas emissions. If the peak happens in 2025, which is perhaps bordering on the pessimistic, the figure is 12 per cent. If we go to 2030, which is not that far away, the annual cut is 22 per cent. Those figures are horrendous however we look at them. Lord Stern has pointed out that what we are trying to do is more demanding than even the accidental reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that take place in any recession.

Graham Stuart: Irrespective of whether the peak happens in 2015 or 2020, does the hon. Gentleman think that it is realistic to believe that the required emissions cuts can be made when no country has managed more than about 1 per cent., or at most 2 per cent., even in the case of Russia when its industries collapsed?

Colin Challen: That would call for the most radical transformation of our economy. Many people are working on that, but they are still on the fringe, perhaps in the way that people who spoke about climate change were on the fringe 30 years ago. I do not necessarily include Margaret Thatcher, but I bet that some people in her party thought that she was a bit on the fringe when talking about climate change to the United Nations and making a big issue of it. She should obviously get credit for that. Organisations such as the New Economics Foundation, the Green New Deal Group, which includes quite a number of people, and other campaigns show that we could start the transformation far more quickly if we had the political will.

Peter Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman will find that the Conservative party is hardly on the fringe and that the low-carbon economy paper that we published earlier this year is an excellent blueprint, which I commend to him, if we want to move quickly to such an economy.

Colin Challen: I am always fascinated by cast-iron guarantees, so I shall look forward to reading that document as soon as possible.
	I want now to turn to our plans. The Committee on Climate Change has been bold in the recommendations in its first annual report to Parliament. I hope that, as with the Kelly report, we will adopt the CCC's entire recommendations without equivocation. That would call for a pretty massive transformation. However, the CCC still has a somewhat optimistic bias in its reading of the models. It is talking about projected annual carbon savings of 2 to 3 per cent., which is well beyond what we have managed in the past, without the assistance of a recession. We should carefully consider its recommendations, but also accept that they might be an optimistic basis on which to proceed.
	So far, what are the grounds for optimism in terms of delivering some of these changes? In the context of our Labour Government's overall economic investment strategy to get us out of recession, one bank assessment stated that the green component of the industrial strategy is about 7 per cent. In South Korea, it is 10 times greater. That tells us something about the difference between us, in that the South Koreans still plan their economy, rather than simply leaving it to the ravages of the marketplace.
	The Government have been open and honest about where we are potentially heading and about the impacts of global warming in various regions around the world, as the maps that have appeared on the Table before us illustrate. The Committee on Climate Change says that even if all its plans come to fruition-which is a big ask-we still have only a 44 per cent. chance of success. Having recently heard more of the science-and we are halfway through an IPCC review period, so still more of it is emerging-it is clear that a 4° increase in temperature is on the cards. That will, of course, lead to different temperature changes in different parts of the world: in the Arctic region, perhaps by 8° to 10°, and it might be of a similar order in equatorial regions. We are obviously in a mess, and very swift action is required to get us out of it.
	Sadly-my Front-Bench colleagues might anticipate my next remarks, and this is where I depart from the prognosis of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal-we seem to want to adopt technologies that cannot deliver in time. Does anybody really expect either carbon capture and storage or nuclear technologies to deliver a single new green watt of electricity before, let us say, 2025? We are promised a new nuclear power station by 2017. Well, if neither the Finns nor the French can do it, are we really going to do it? I cannot see that happening. Let us say that the first will come on stream in 2025; then we will have to wait for the replacements to be overtaken before we start getting the new nuclear electricity. When will that happen-in 2030 or 2035? This is not a solution to the problem that will arise if emissions have not peaked and then started to reduce by 2025, because we will then have to make 12 per cent. reductions every year. Nuclear does not help us get to the peak point and neither does CCS-although I admit that, given the Indian and Chinese contexts, we have to confront the need for CCS. However, I think we could leapfrog its use in this country, while possibly still developing the technology.
	I had an exchange in the Environmental Audit Committee on Tuesday with some representatives of the CCS industry. I put it to them that they are playing a blinder on the Government. In the first phase of the EU emissions trading scheme, the power generators made billions of pounds of windfall profit from the ETS free allocation of credits. They did not spend a penny on CCS, yet now they come cap in hand to the Government asking for a few hundred million quid to bail them out and help them cope with that massive investment, which they say their shareholders cannot afford. I urge the Government to look very carefully at the power generators' arguments and to pin them down.
	The same practice should apply to the nuclear industry. An excellent document called "Nuclear subsidies", which is available on www.nonukes.org.uk, reveals the full extent of the nuclear subsidies. One of the biggest is the industry's unlimited insurance, which the taxpayer would have to pick up if something went seriously wrong. However, if the nuclear industry had to pay for it itself, it would force the price of electricity up far beyond the highest price we are anticipating paying for the brand- new renewable technologies. As they are rolled out on a larger scale, the price of those technologies will come down and down, but that is not true of the nuclear industry, whose costs will go up and up-not just the cost of uranium, but all the other costs, not least the insurance and the extra costs of having to deal with proliferation.
	In conclusion, the Government have shown leadership internationally. I, too, believe that they have a lot more to do on delivering concrete, practical examples of progress on the ground. It is wrong to suggest that nuclear power and CCS are panaceas, because even if they are supported, they cannot be introduced in time-at least, that is the view of the IPCC's 2007 report, which I am sure will be superseded by a 2011 report showing that things are worse. I plead with my Front-Bench colleagues: next time they have people from the coal industry, the nuclear industry or the power generators knocking on their door, tell 'em where to shove off.

Peter Lilley: May I draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests? I wish to return to the theme of the £6 million advertising campaign on the television which shows a father reading bedtime fairy stories to his little girl. I do not know whether it was a Freudian slip on the part of Ministers to plant in viewers' minds the suggestion that these alarmist stories that puppies would die, that baby rabbits would drown and that English towns would be swept away under water were fairy stories, but that is what they seem to have done. I say that because, although nobody in the House seems to wish to reflect on it, the fact is that fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class-predominantly-are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world. It is right and proper that we should reflect on that detachment between the people of this country and their leaders, and it is sad that those who have spoken in this debate so far have refused to do so.
	The latest Pew survey-this survey is carried out across the world every year- shows that only 15 per cent. of people in this country take seriously, or are seriously concerned about, the prospect of climate change and almost half believe that nothing can be done. On the latter point, the corresponding figure worldwide is much lower-it is less than 40 per cent.-and on the former, the figure is much higher in most other countries, including the United States of America. Although my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) gave his customary attack on the American people for their obscurantism, he ought to reflect, as we all ought to do, on the fact that the British people rate the issue of climate change less seriously than even the American people do.
	The second bit of evidence to cite is the exhibition that has been going on at the Science museum, which purports to give people the facts about climate change. At the end, people are asked to sign up; they are asked-yes or no-whether having heard the facts, they want to send the message to the Government that they must take serious action about climate change. People were responding to that survey after they had been through the museum and seen the graphic evidence presented in the most persuasive way possible by the alarmists. By a ratio of almost 6:1, the noes, who said that they did not believe in climate change and did not want to warn the Government, outweighed the yeses. Surely that, too, is something on which this House should reflect; I am surprised that we do not. Above all, the Government should reflect on why they have been so singularly incapable of carrying the British public with them and why their arguments have cut such little ice-I hope that I may use that phrase.

Graham Stuart: I did not know about the Science museum numbers, which are truly shocking. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that illustrates that preaching at people, trying to be divisive and trying to pretend that anybody who disagrees or who has any doubts or scepticism should be treated as though they are fundamentally and obviously wrong, is counterproductive? We need to engage in constructive discussion and dialogue with everyone and not to preach. That will carry more people over to accept the risks, as I see it, of climate change, on which my right hon. Friend's views might be slightly different from mine.

Peter Lilley: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The alarmism and the overstatement have caused the problem. As a group of scientists, including the former chief scientist, have recently warned, alarmist overstatement-a refusal to acknowledge the difficulties and uncertainties-is bad for getting the message over and has a counterproductive effect.
	When I raised the matter with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), he said-as did other people who prompted him-that it was all because of people like me. I would love to believe that I and a handful of others had such silver-tongued eloquence that we were able, with the minimal exposure we are given, to have converted the British people to a degree of scepticism. I do not want to convert them to scepticism about the science. The science is not a fairy tale. The basic science is that if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is doubled, before the feedbacks are considered, that will increase the surface temperature of the atmosphere by 1° C. That is the scientific analysis that any physicist will support. If that higher temperature were to result in more water vapour in the atmosphere, which it does not seem to have done, that would raise the temperature by another 2° C. A doubling of CO2 could have the direct greenhouse effect of raising the temperature by up to 2° C.
	The Government and the alarmists have to concoct a lot of feedbacks that so far have not manifested themselves to predict that in future we will see far higher rises in temperature from a given increase in CO2 than we have in the past. I am neither a denier of the science nor an alarmist. I am a lukewarmist, if one likes-

Colin Challen: That makes a change.

Peter Lilley: It does. It is unusual for me-

Frank Dobson: You are a global lukewarmist.

Peter Lilley: I am a global lukewarmist, and I take seriously-

John Gummer: A sort of sceptic, really.

Peter Lilley: A sort of sceptic, yes. Unlike my right hon. Friend, who is simply credulous.
	A lot of fairy stories are attached to and latched on to a genuine scientific concern. The first fairy tale, which the Government foster, is the idea that there is total consensus in science at the alarmist end of the spectrum. The key to the science of global warming and climate change is physics. One can study the physics of global warming without having much knowledge of meteorology, but one cannot study meteorology without studying physics, someone said-and I do not repeat that just because I happen to have studied physics at Cambridge.
	A recent controversy in the American Physical Society proves pretty clearly that there is no consensus among physicists, at least, about extreme versions of the theories. It was sparked off when the committee of the APS was persuaded by the great and the good to sign up to a statement that the evidence for the more alarmist views of anthropogenic global warming was
	"incontrovertible...If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur."
	The committee issued that statement without consulting the society's members, which sparked off a revolt, and 160 senior physicists-members of the American Physical Society-wrote a letter publicly disowning that statement and suggesting that it should be replaced with a more moderate statement, saying that
	"while substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th-21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today."
	It went on:
	"Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project"
	climate change.
	The statement was signed by a lot of serious scientists. I am going to take the House's time and list some of them, but I shall read out only those who are professors of physics. They include the professor of physics at the university of North Carolina, the professor of physics at Rutgers university, the professor of physics at Princeton university, the professor and chair of the physics department at Bernidji state university, the professor of chemical physics at the university of Medina, the professor of physics at the university of California, the professor and chair of the physics department at the George Washington university, the professor of physics at the university of Rochester, the professor of engineering physics at the university of Virginia, the professor of physics at the university of Washington, the professor of physics at Santa Clara university, the professor of physics at Colorado state university, the professor of the physics of geological processes at the university of Oslo, the professor of the department of chemistry and physics at the William Patterson university, the professor of physics at the Ivar Giaever institute-who won the Nobel prize-and another professor in the university of Virginia's department of physics.
	The list goes on: the professor of physics at the university at Hatfield, another professor of physics at Princeton university, the professor of physics at the university of Connecticut, another professor of physics from Washington and yet another from the university of Rochester, which seems to be a hotbed of scepticism. A professor of physics and astronomy-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is taking quite a proportion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Perhaps it would be better to say to the House that the list will be available in Library.

Peter Lilley: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the list will be available in  Hansard. I have only three more to go, but I want to point out to those hon. Members who say persistently that only a handful of mavericks disagree, that, in fact, a lot of serious professors at serious universities do so.
	With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall add the last few: the professor of physics at the university of California, the professor of physics, astronomy and geophysics at Connecticut college, the professor of physics at Tuft's university, and the professor of physics at Midwestern university. There are rather more than I thought, I do apologise. The professor of physics-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the House has got the idea, given what the right hon. Gentleman said was the point that he was trying to make.

Peter Lilley: I shall pray you in aid, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when people say that there is only a handful of dissenters and that the science is settled. I am very grateful to you for giving me your authority to do so.
	The simple fact is that the science is not resolved. A lot of serious scientists think that although there is a measure of impact-I agree with that-the alarmist views are not upheld by the science. A majority may well disagree with the scientists to whom I have referred-

Alan Whitehead: More than a majority!

Peter Lilley: More than a majority? You cannot have more than a majority, can you?
	A majority may disagree, but my point is merely that there is dissent, that the science is not settled and that argument and debate go on. We should not pretend otherwise.

Alan Whitehead: The right hon. Gentleman has read out a very short list, but does he accept that it would take several days to read out the list of people who have the opposite opinion about the science of climate change? Does he also accept that the whole idea of science is that it consists of hypotheses and disputes? There never is an absolute consensus, but is it not probably a good idea to take the advice of the large number of scientists who think certain things and have established a large amount of empirical evidence for, and understanding of, their hypotheses?

Peter Lilley: When Einstein came out with his theory of relativity, the Nazi authorities in Germany did not like it because he was a Jew. They got 100 professors of physics-Germany's entire physics establishment-to sign a statement that he was wrong. He replied that if he were wrong, it would only take one to prove it.
	In this case, there is a majority on one side of the argument, and a minority on the other, but it is clear that the science remains uncertain and open. That is all that I ask the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) to accept, and he should not pretend that there is unanimity where it does not exist.
	The proper debate that we need about the subject will require openness and those who doubt what is said by one side to have the opportunity to try to replicate that side's arguments-that is normal in science. I hope that the Minister will tell us what is happening about the Met Office Hadley centre's refusal to publish the basic figures it has received from around the world that it uses to calculate its estimates of the rise in surface temperatures throughout the world. It was disappointing that the scientists initially refused to publish that material-although they made it available to scientists who agreed with them, they refused to give it to those who disagreed. The centre then gave as an excuse the alleged fact that there were confidentiality agreements with some countries that had given information, saying that it was therefore not at liberty to publish, and then refused to publish the confidentiality agreements or the names of the countries with which it supposedly had those agreements, and said that the agreements had disappeared.
	If we are to have a sensible and open debate, people must have the opportunity to examine the facts and data, reproduce what others have done, and show whether or not that is replicable, as the case may be. I hope that the Minister will respond to this point in her winding-up speech; I tabled a question on the matter a while ago, so the answer must be at her disposal.
	There are plenty of other fairy stories around, and I want to touch on the idea that a rise of 2° C would constitute dangerous climate change that we should try to avoid by spending unlimited amounts. That is a 2° C rise not from now, but from before the industrial revolution. We have already had a rise of 0.7° C, so it is being said that a further 1.3° C rise in world temperature would be dangerous. One reason why the ordinary public are in disbelief is because they spend their time looking for places that are 10° C warmer than here, not 1° C. The Minister was frightfully upset when I pointed out that the average temperature in north-east England was more than 2° C higher than that in Cornwall and asked whether it was dangerous for people to go from Newcastle to Newquay. We cannot pretend that comparatively modest changes to the temperature of the Earth will lead to Armageddon-they will not.
	I hope that we will listen to those scientists, many of whom are in Government employ, who have warned against alarmist views, and that we will take a more consensual view of the basic minimum science that is agreed and open that up to debate and discussion, without trying to silence those who disagree by calling them "deniers" and equating them with holocaust deniers. As I said, I am not a denier-I am a lukewarmer-but even those who deny the existence of anthropological global warning deserve to be heard, just as the alarmists do, and it is sad that we have heard only one or two such views expressed in the House today.

Nia Griffith: I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, but it is important that we get on with action rather than simply talking. We might hear many fine words, but action will count in the end.
	We understand the importance of working with other countries. I am sure that we have all heard our constituents ask, "What's the good of us doing anything if no one else does?" The climate change conference in Copenhagen will be crucial to efforts to get international progress. I am proud that our Prime Minister and Secretary of State have shown strong leadership.
	Our Prime Minister's initiative in commissioning the Stern report led to helpful discussions that allowed us to pass the Climate Change Act 2008, which was a world first. Recently in the EU, he has also shown leadership on trying to take three practical proposals to the Copenhagen meeting: an EU contribution to help developing countries on mitigation and adaptation measures; an attempt to agree figures for international financial support; and an agreement that that support will be given immediately. Obviously, we need to be at the centre of the EU if we are to influence such decisions. We must ensure that we take the lead not only as the UK, but as the EU, which is influential in climate change discussions on the world stage.
	I am very pleased to see that deforestation is on the Copenhagen agenda. It is difficult to believe, but the emissions from deforestation each year are equivalent to the emissions from 600 coal-fired power stations, so it is a major contributor to the loss of mitigation of climate change: in other words, we need to stop cutting down forests, and quickly. The answer is not as simple as going around the world telling other countries and local communities what to do, but we must avoid providing additional incentives for deforestation. We must ensure that it does not take place to fuel rich countries' greed-in particular, their greed for energy sources. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to persuade international colleagues to agree to the Eliasch review's recommendation that credits for avoided deforestation be included on the international carbon market. It is difficult to work out what that means in practice, but it is important to provide incentives for people not to destroy the world's forests, which are so vital to combating climate change.
	We have recently heard a good deal about the 10:10 campaign, and I congratulate hon. Members who have signed up to it, particularly the members of the Cabinet, who have all signed up to it. However, it reminds us that in 2005 I, together with several enlightened colleagues, signed up to the 25/5 campaign for a 25 per cent. reduction in emissions over five years. I am sure that many colleagues agree that the first part is easy, involving reducing waste, switching off unnecessary appliances, using low-energy light bulbs and turning down the heating. However, it then becomes more difficult. Moving on from waste, one has to think about more fundamental changes in lifestyle, including one's transport modes, holiday destinations and energy sources.
	The same applies to Government action. We need more investment in public transport if we are to help people to cut down on individual transport use and to reduce their carbon footprint. We certainly need much more investment in renewable energy, so that, if we decide to fuel electric cars, we know that the electricity comes from renewable sources.
	To deliver on climate change, strong Government leadership is essential; it cannot be left purely to market forces. We often demonstrate that leadership, but are then pilloried in the tabloid press-ridiculed for ideas that need to be implemented. A good example is some of their attitudes towards recycling schemes. We know why we need to recycle, but we encounter ridicule instead of sensible and constructive debate in some of our tabloids.

Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Lady therefore agree that it would have been helpful, first, if the Department for Transport had signed up to the 10:10 campaign, as the Department for Energy and Climate Change has, and committed itself to achieving those objectives; and, secondly, if the Government had not opposed the proposal two weeks ago?

Nia Griffith: The problem is that the 10:10 campaign represents a short time scale, and many spending plans are in place up to April next year and, indeed, beyond. We must address the question, what is a realistic time scale? We must also be honest about the things that we control and the things that private companies provide, which are not so easy to control. We must consider introducing carbon limits for procurement, and we must look at what the people from whom we buy goods and services, and the people who obtain franchises for services, actually deliver.
	We have made progress on microgeneration, and we have certainly come a long way since my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) introduced his private Member's Bill several years ago, when hardly anyone had heard of microgeneration. However, there are still difficulties and we need to put things right so that people do not face questions about how to set it up and how to get on to the national grid. We have introduced the idea of using feed-in tariffs, but it is still not quick and easy for people to get sorted out.
	We also need to consider permitted development on farms and in smallholdings. We might talk about a wind turbine on a house roof, but farm users have much bigger energy needs, particularly if they run dairy sheds, and it would be more practical if they were able to install the slightly larger wind turbines that provide for their needs. They should not have to go through a long and complicated planning process.

Graham Stuart: Does the hon. Lady believe, as I do, that legislators have a key role in holding Governments to account for the promises that they make? If so, what role has she played personally in holding this Government to account for their record at home?

Nia Griffith: One of the difficulties with planning is that it is a highly devolved issue. Much of the permitted development is discussed at local authority level, so that is where much of the emphasis has to be if we are to get this right. Some local authorities are way ahead of others in dealing with these matters.
	We must remember how much we need to do in terms of adaptation. The draft Floods and Water Management Bill is now proposed for the Queen's Speech, and that will do many of things that we wanted following the Pitt report. Having seen the terrible pictures on television, we are all aware of how devastating flooding can be to people across the country, but apart from those high-profile cases, many of us know of more local places where flash floods have occurred and people have had to stay out of their homes for months. In a constituency such as mine, which is very low-lying and surrounded on three sides by sea, the whole issue of dealing with climate change is very real to people as they move out of their homes to have all the work done that is necessary after flooding. That is a gruesome reminder of how close we are to some awful effects of climate change.
	We need to be sure that there is a truly concerted effort by all the agencies involved to protect people's homes from flooding so that we get better maintenance, more flood defences and much speedier action in emergencies. I welcome the measures in the Bill to secure better co-ordination between authorities. However, I am worried by the recent Wales Audit Office report stating that the Welsh Assembly Government are not spending enough money on flood defences. We need to take seriously the whole question of how we can make more funds available, so that people can be protected in their homes now.

David Drew: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is an onus on individual households, perhaps working in communities, to take initiatives to mitigate the worst aspects of flooding? It has been disappointing to see the low take-up of measures introduced for that purpose. Government must pay attention to that, because flooding is a key feature of climate change.

Nia Griffith: Yes, indeed. It is easy to think, "What harm will one more garage or one more patio do?" but we need to be aware of the effects that we have collectively when we do these things. We must look for ways to mitigate those effects and try to reduce the amount of surface water that we contribute.
	On the low-carbon economy, we all realise how important it is that we get ahead of the game and ensure that we develop low-carbon industries, instead of ending up importing things that could have been designed, developed and manufactured in this country. We must give clear signals to manufacturers about what we want. That was certainly the evidence put to us in the Committee on the draft Climate Change Bill, where manufacturers said, "You tell us the parameters, you tell us what you want, and we will deliver." We have to say what we want and set strict objectives, whether on emissions, fuel efficiency or producing electric cars, and manufacturers will respond.
	On renewable energy, too, we cannot just leave things to market forces. We have to take a very proactive approach, and in particular not limit it to the easy-to-develop types of technology. We need to spend a lot more time encouraging and giving financial incentives to develop some of the more difficult renewables, such as the use of marine current turbines under the sea or other methods of harnessing water energy. We have tended to see things simply in terms of wind or solar and have not developed water, of which we have a huge resource in this country.
	The beginnings of the industrial revolution came from water mills. We must look carefully at what we could do in harnessing a lot more of what we might call mini-hydro on many of our rivers. Some very small mini-hydro projects run into trouble because of various rules on water extraction. The Environment Agency tells people that they cannot do this or that, but it is important that we consider what can be done to enable people to develop mini-hydro projects, perhaps by increasing water capacity so that they are not seen as destroying the environment. Essentially, all they do is take water out and then put it back; the difficulty is the level that it goes down to when it is taken out. I am sure that more help could be given to people to overcome such small, technical problems. Once the resource is established and the system is in place, it can run for ever.
	We must ensure that we give full encouragement to a full range of renewables, but we also need to decide how many of each facility we want. One problem with our planning system is that there can be applications all over the country, but people have not added up the sum total of what they will lead to. One example is biomass plants: many people are racing for them, but I ask whether we have enough biomass to fuel a large number of plants.
	If it is simply a matter of sweeping up sawdust and using the rough materials that we can provide in this country, that is one thing. However, if we are not careful, we will end up competing for precious forest products from across the world, which makes no sense at all, given the problem of deforestation. Sadly, people are not as honest about sustainability and replanting when they are anxiously trying to get a biomass plant so that they can access the funding that is available for renewables obligation certificates. We need to examine the overall strategy for the whole country and ask whether we are getting the numbers right on the availability of biomass.
	In an ideal world, perhaps we would like to give up using fossil fuels, but we have to be honest and say that currently 70 per cent. of our electricity comes from such sources, whether coal or gas. It is not realistic to want to throw fossil fuels out of the window just like that. We need to develop clean coal and carbon capture technology, because if we are to rely on coal for some considerable time to come, it makes sense to use our indigenous coal as cleanly as we can and put carbon capture measures in place. It is absolute madness to import coal or use enormous quantities of vegetation when we have a compact form of fuel in our coal. We need to consider what to do to encourage deep mining, now that Tower colliery in south Wales and others have closed. That requires more investment, or we will be left with a simple situation in which people go for open-cast mining, with its unpleasant environmental impact on local communities.
	I wish my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State all the best in securing a strong agreement at Copenhagen. I look forward to supporting him in driving forward a strong agenda for tackling climate change, and particularly developing renewable energies and providing further investment in public transport.

Michael Weir: I am glad to be able to contribute to the debate. Few Members are in any doubt about the reality of climate change and the dangers that face us all. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced a model of what would happen by 2080 based on a "business as usual" scenario, and it is frightening. There would be huge changes in the world. We are already seeing changes, and they are having an impact even on us and our budgets.
	I recently chaired a statutory instrument Committee on increased funding for the Caribbean Development Bank. The Minister of State, Department for International Development, cited the reason for the increase as being to deal with the effects of climate change, particularly given the increasing number and effect of hurricanes. That is one example of the impact that it is having on our budgets.
	We do not need to speculate about what might happen. We can see in other areas of the world that climate change is already having an impact. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) spoke movingly of the situation in Bangladesh and the terrible floods there. Even in my area, although I would not claim that it is equivalent to that, we have seen terrible flooding over the past week, which was perhaps at least partly due to climate change. That brings home the costs of adaptation. There are various schemes in my neck of the woods for dealing with flooding from our rivers, but if we were to undertake all the schemes that are necessary, the cost would run into billions of pounds in Scotland alone. If we add those things together, we see the huge amounts of money that are required.
	Given that background, it is abundantly clear that action needs to be taken. To coin a phrase, we are all in this together, and action has to be taken on a co-ordinated, international basis. The Copenhagen conference must come up with a good deal. As I have said, I agree that it should not be a deal at any price. A deal that avoids committing the world to real action to combat climate change may be worse than no deal at all, as it would give many a false sense of security that something is being done when it is not.
	Like others who have spoken in the debate, I am becoming increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of getting a good deal at Copenhagen and, as I said in interventions on the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), I am also concerned about the impact on people in this country of the failure to get such a deal. We have to fight on two fronts: we must not only secure the deal in Copenhagen, but convince people in this country of the need to tackle climate change.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) quoted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, as saying:
	"Science has been moved aside and the space has been filled up with political myopia with every country now trying to protect its own narrow short-term interests."
	However, the IPCC head went on to say:
	"They are afraid to have negotiations go any further because they would have to compromise on those interests."
	That is worrying, because if we go into Copenhagen with each country simply trying to protect its interest, we will get absolutely nowhere, as others have said, and we are facing a very real problem.
	There is also the problem at home. I do not often agree with the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), but he made a good point about the number of people in this country who agree that there is a need to take action. Many Members will have received when preparing for this debate an e-mail on the HSBC climate confidence monitor. According to its figures, overall in the world,
	"65 per cent. of people believe a new international deal to cut emissions is 'very important'...79 per cent. of people want to see a commitment at Copenhagen that 'meets or significantly exceeds' a 50-80 per cent. cut in emissions by 2050"
	and
	"69 per cent. of people agree that addressing climate change is at least as important, if not more important, than supporting their national economy during the downturn."
	That is all very well and good, and perhaps quite encouraging, but the e-mail goes on to say:
	"In the UK, however, we still have a significant amount of work to do to convince the public that solutions are possible. Whilst those surveyed for the Monitor in developing countries are calling loudest for strong action on climate change, the UK scored highest across the world for those who believe climate change cannot be stopped (53 per cent.)".
	That is not to say that people in the UK do not understand that there is a problem, but they are sceptical about our ability to deal with it. Ministers and all hon. Members should find that statistic very worrying indeed, because we need to take people with us if we are going to tackle climate change.

Graham Stuart: We need not only to take people with us, but to come up with a credible plan that suggests that the world is capable of making the transformative reduction in CO2 emissions. At the moment, no such credible plan exists, so if people are sceptical about our ability to deliver, that is right and proper. It is for those in the House and elsewhere to come up with more credible plans.

Michael Weir: The hon. Gentleman reads my mind to some extent-that is what I was coming to.
	The danger is that if we go to Copenhagen and come away without a plan, scepticism, and the sense that climate change is inevitable and that there is nothing we can do to stop it, will increase. Because we have spent the past couple of years or so telling the general public that something must be done, we must get this agreement. The Prime Minister said not so long ago that we have 50 days to save the planet, if I remember correctly. Much of that is true, but what will be the impact on the general population of this country if they see that the politics is not keeping up with the science and that we are not taking it seriously enough to ensure that we reach a deal that will tackle these matters?
	I raised that point with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith when he talked about the activist base-those people who are very engaged with the issue and send us postcards and so on. We all have such constituents, and some of them send postcards from several different organisations at the same time. However, we have to remember that the very engaged are just a small segment of the population. Many of our constituents may have an idea that climate change is a problem, and may do a bit here and there, but they are not that engaged. The impact on them of a failure to reach agreement at Copenhagen deeply worries me.
	If, after Copenhagen, we end up saying, "Och well, it was just a step in the right direction. It was a window of opportunity, but we will have another conference in three, six or 12 months", the message will be that climate change is not such a great problem. People will think, "It's not all that dangerous, we can afford to spend more time before we reach a deal." I do not think that we can-we need to take action now. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) made a very good point with his t-shirt from the Youth Parliament. If we are talking about targets for 2050, that is a very long way away, and very few of us will still be-to put it politely-active in politics then. Even interim targets for 2020 represent two Parliaments into the future before we have standards to move towards.
	We have to think about the impact of failure at Copenhagen on ordinary people, as well as on activists. The Secretary of State rightly made the point that we must make the issue of jobs and the green economy central to our argument. That is another way to make the issue relevant to ordinary people and to show that it is not just about science and warming, but about how we change our economy, create jobs and come out of the current recession.
	One example of what can be done is happening in my area. The Crown Estate has recently awarded exclusivity agreements for offshore wind farms. There are four off the east coast of Scotland: Inch Cape, Bell Rock, Neart na Gaoithe and the Forth Array. Altogether, 10 are planned, which will create some 6,500 MW of renewable energy. As I pointed out at questions this morning, Siemens and Vestas which manufacture wind turbines say that the construction phase creates 3,000 jobs for every gigawatt of wind energy. That is a tremendous opportunity to create new jobs. In my area, the ports that formerly served the fishing and oil industries are becoming very interested, because they can see the opportunity to diversify by servicing wind farms. We debated the Select Committee's report on the oil and gas industry last week in Westminster Hall, and we made the point that it has a huge opportunity to diversify into offshore renewables. Given how many jobs could be involved, we can do a lot to show ordinary people the relevance of tackling climate change.
	There is also a slight problem. Two of the new offshore wind farms-Inch Cape and Bell Rock-are directly off my constituency. The Crown Estate announced the exclusivity agreements back in February, but I was inundated a few weeks ago by fishermen from Arbroath, who came to see me en masse because the proposed Bell Rock wind farm is in their fishing grounds. They were worried that they would no longer be able to fish in the area. That is not the case, and the area is not to be closed off for the wind farm. However, there is sometimes a lack of communication between those developing renewables and those who might be affected by the impact.
	As it happens, I have introduced the fishermen to the developers. They are now talking, and I am certain that we will get an agreement that prevents the farm from impacting on the fishermen. However, we have to be careful that we do not get into the situation with offshore wind that we got into with onshore wind, where there was almost a knee-jerk reaction against any proposed wind farm. We need to be careful in the way we go about offshore wind.
	I urge Ministers to go for the strongest possible scheme at Copenhagen. I believe that we need to agree a scheme to reduce emissions by 80 per cent. by 2050, but more than that we have to show that we are serious about committing to a reduction of at least 40 per cent. by 2020. Frankly, as far as I can see, the omens are not good. Although the United States is finally moving through the efforts of President Obama, as it has been noted, a version of the US Bill has passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate, and it will not have been passed come Copenhagen. It is very unlikely, therefore, that the United States will be in a strong negotiating position at Copenhagen. Without the States, things look bad indeed.
	The Scottish Parliament has also produced ambitious climate change legislation. We should not think that only this place is involved. The devolved Administrations also have a say in the matter for their own areas in producing climate change legislation. In Scotland, we have a statutory target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent. by 2050, including emissions from international aviation and shipping, and an interim target of 42 per cent. by 2020. We have pledged to establish a framework for annual targets, because 2020 is two Parliaments away and we have to find a way of establishing how we are getting along. Along with the draft budget, the Finance Secretary, John Swinney, has produced a carbon budget. Crucially, an attempt is being made in that budget to calculate the emissions for which Scotland is responsible from goods manufactured outwith Scotland. That is also part of our true carbon footprint. We have to take that into account.
	I will not pretend that meeting those-or any-targets will be easy. Again, I return to my main point: we have to take people with us. We will have to explain exactly what it means to meet the targets. The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) said that individuals have to make a lot of changes. That is why 10:10, and other such campaigns, are so important. They give guidance and help people to make the small changes that will add up to meeting our climate change targets. The ease with which we can reduce our emissions by 10 per cent. over the next year depends on where we start from. Some of us might find it quite difficult; some might find it quite easy. However, if we all make the effort, we will get there.
	I end on a perhaps more controversial note. I have talked about the devolved Administrations and what they are doing to try to make reductions. The Minister talked about the need for everyone to come together and show leadership, so I find it very strange that the Government are not prepared to have representatives from the devolved Administrations on the delegation to Copenhagen. A Scottish Minister could help. The Scottish climate change legislation has been welcomed by the Government of Maldives, the President of Ethiopia and others who are directly affected. It is a great shame that the Government will not be inclusive and take a Scottish Minister to Copenhagen as well.

Clive Efford: Like many who have spoken today, I think that climate change is the most important issue confronting politicians of our generation, notwithstanding the speech by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). I am not sure whether his point was that climate change is not occurring or, if climate change is not the fault of the activities of human kind, that we should perhaps leave it to the polar bears to sort out. However, the problem is there for us to confront as politicians, regardless of its source.
	I accept the point about public opinion. I have seen opinion polls suggesting that the issue has never been lower down people's lists of priorities in the past 10 or 15 years than it is now. However, we still have a duty as elected representatives to address it and ensure that we try to educate people and take them with us.
	As hon. Members have said, we have benefited from nearly 200 years of economic development based on a carbon economy. The heaviest consequences of that are now weighing very heavily indeed on the developing countries. I attended a symposium organised by Lord Nicholas Stern in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago. Lord Martin Rees, the chairman of the Royal Society, made the point that an increase in the average global temperature will not affect everybody equally in each country or on each continent. An increase of 4° C, which is not the worst-case scenario, but the upper limit of what it is hoped climate change can be limited to, would mean a 10° C increase in the average temperature in Africa. We therefore have a moral duty to address the issue, as much as anything else.
	An international agreement is essential. I would like genuinely to commend the Prime Minister on his activity on the issue and on his determination to get other international leaders to address it, including by turning up at Copenhagen and reaching an agreement. Without that, we will not achieve a framework to take us forward that seriously addresses the issue.

David Drew: Climate change affects us all, because the greatest change in Africa now is mass migration, which is not happening just within Africa, but will affect the entire western world. Does my hon. Friend agree with that?

Clive Efford: Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a point that everyone would accept and agree with.
	I shall risk being partisan for a moment, but I want to say to the Conservative party that whoever wins the next general election will have to deal with the issue. In order to do that, whoever wins will have to maximise their influence in all the major debating forums, including the EU, the UN, the G20 and wherever else the issue will be discussed. Placing yourselves at the fringes of the European Union, in the way that you have in your party grouping, is not-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The language that the hon. Gentleman is using would appear to involve the Chair. I think that he is referring to hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House from himself.

Clive Efford: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been here long enough to appreciate that I should not use the second person.
	Having placed themselves where they have, the Conservatives will not be in the vanguard of those debates. In fact, people who are concerned about the issue will be alarmed that they have aligned themselves with people who deny that climate change is even a problem. The Conservatives may have concerns about the European Union and this country's association with it, but I would suggest that it is not in this country's best interest for the Conservative party to pull its Union Jack underpants tight up under its armpits and march off into the wilderness when the rest of us will be debating those important issues. I urge the Conservatives to consider the position that they have adopted because, should they ever-God forbid-find themselves in Government, they will have to represent this country in debates on this matter, and they will not be able to do so from the fringes of the European Union on which they have placed themselves.
	The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) mentioned hydrofluorocarbons earlier, and I have also discussed them with my hon. Friend the Minister. If I were to recommend to her a way of cutting 10 per cent. of our carbon emissions, I am sure that she would be interested, and that is exactly what we could do if we cut the use of HFCs. They now constitute about 2 per cent. of our global warming emissions, but their use is projected to grow by 3 per cent. a year. By 2050, they could represent more than 12 per cent. of this country's emissions. If we address this important issue now, we could head off the catastrophic consequences of the continued use of these gases.
	HFCs came into widespread use to replace chlorofluorocarbons-CFCs-under the Montreal protocol, which addressed the issue of damage to the ozone layer. I understand that amendments are to be tabled to that protocol to bring HFCs under the same regime, and that the Government are proposing amendments calling for a reduction in the use of HFCs through the prevention of leakages, and for the promotion of energy efficiency in the equipment that uses HFCs. Those are desirable aims, but, in the long term, they will not solve the problem of the growing use of those gases.
	The Government's proposals are good for the short term, and they represent an excellent interim measure, but we need to act on them now. I have met the Minister to discuss this, and I have been told that an argument against the UK regulating in this area is that we would come up against EU competition rules. I have worked with the Environmental Investigation Agency, which has recently produced a report on the use of HFCs in supermarket refrigeration units, and the progress of that industry towards eradicating their use. The agency has also met representatives of the European Commission to discuss this, and it says that the Commission would welcome action in this area, and that European competition rules would not stand in the way of the UK's regulating in this matter.
	I urge the Government to take action on HFCs not only because eradicating their use is the right thing to do but because regulation can create a framework in which change can be brought about. An example that I would offer to the Minister is that of the introduction of catalytic converters into vehicles. Arguments against that included the suggestion that it would impose unacceptable increases in cost, which would make cars too expensive. The arguments were eventually overcome, and catalytic converters were introduced into cars with minimum impact on the industry, and certainly with minimum impact on the cost of cars to the consumer.

John Gummer: Does the hon. Gentleman not find it surprising that large numbers of big companies have been perfectly prepared to sign up to not using HFCs? There are no sectors in which HFCs are necessary, and they could all be got rid of without much difficulty. The British Government have in the past voted against banning them, which is a rather serious matter. Would it not be a good idea if they got rid of all these bits and pieces and, instead, stood up and said, "We will encourage a ban on HFCs by the year 2013"?

Clive Efford: I accept some of what the right hon. Gentleman says. Some uses of HFCs will need to continue, but they are minimal. I definitely agree with the right hon. Gentleman in saying that this should not be used as a smokescreen for encouraging general use of HFCs or to prevent the Government from regulating. The supermarkets are responsible for about 50 per cent. of HFC emissions, while refrigeration units are the major source of HFCs in the country, so regulation in respect of that would be very welcome, even within the industry itself-indeed, the industry has said that it wants such regulation.
	As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal pointed out, some large companies, including Unilever, Coca Cola and McDonald's have said that they want to stop using HFCs, so there is already a great deal of interest within the industry in such a change. The major UK supermarkets say the same, but make the point that, in order to make progress, they need a level playing field. This is a highly competitive market, in which the supermarkets are always looking over their shoulders to gain a market advantage over one another. They argue that were there a regulatory framework within which they all had to operate, they would be able to make progress, because they would then know that their competitors would have to act in exactly the same way.
	We need a regulatory framework and investment in research and development to tackle this issue. In turn that provides an opportunity for our industry, as we could help to develop the new green technology required.
	We must also train the technicians. The technical change involved in moving from CFCs to HFCs was minimal, but using carbon-based gases, which do not have the capacity to add to global warming, as refrigerants will require people to be trained to use different equipment. That said, none of those problems is insurmountable.
	The agreement that has been secured between the industry itself and those campaigning against HFCs should provide an opportunity for the Government to act to cut the use of those gases, which are up to 20,000 more potent in terms of global warming than CO2. The fact that their use is increasing at 3 per cent. a year should provide a wake-up call to us all. I believe that the Government should take the supermarket industry at its word and regulate. They should set a date, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal suggested, to eradicate usage of HFCs in supermarket refrigeration units. That date should not be too distant, but 2012 or 2013, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested.
	In conclusion, I wish the Secretary of State and, indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister every success in the Copenhagen discussions and I hope that HFCs will feature in them. I note from Tuesday's edition of  The Guardian that Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is quietly confident that something will eventually come out of the Copenhagen discussions, and I sincerely hope he is right. If the Minister of State is concerned about her carbon footprint, I nevertheless urge her to continue with one important part of her activities-the burning of the midnight oil to ensure that we reach an agreement at Copenhagen. I urge her and other Ministers to be bold, as others have suggested. Some things that might have been thought unthinkable in the past must become thinkable at Copenhagen, particularly if we are to avoid going down as the generation that fluffed it by failing to take the necessary action to protect future generations from the worst effects of climate change. I wish all Ministers every success at Copenhagen.

Graham Stuart: It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who made a passionate and well-informed speech about the need for the Government to do more about HFCs. I entirely agree with him, and he has cross-party support for his call for greater action and urgency than we have seen from the Government to date.
	I intend to speak about China, Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment-GLOBE International-and climate change. In the context of climate change, China is often portrayed as a large, irresponsible polluter, as a country that will not come to the table, and, along with the United States, as the chief barrier to international progress on action on climate change. The question that logically follows that portrayal is, "If China-coupled with the United States-is unprepared to take real action, why should we, a country whose emissions amount to only 2 per cent. of the global total, need to take action ourselves?"
	My engagement with Chinese legislators through GLOBE, an international cross-party group of parliamentarians from the major economies, has revealed that that perception of China is far from the truth. If anything, it is we who are in danger of being left behind in the race towards a more prosperous low-carbon future and the new jobs and industries that it will bring, to which many hon. Members referred.
	Using some indicators, one could be forgiven for thinking that China is the developed country and the United Kingdom the developing country when it comes to tackling climate change. The Minister may smile. For many years she campaigned for greater action from the Government, and she now finds herself in the unenviable position of having to defend the indefensible from the Front Bench. However, I know that she and her colleagues -including, I hope and believe, the new Secretary of State-are bringing greater urgency to the necessity for Britain to take action at home as well as talking so ably abroad.
	Let us look at the figures relating to renewable energy. In 2007, 8.5 per cent. of the total consumption of primary energy in China came from renewable sources. In the United States the figure was 7 per cent., and in the United Kingdom it was just 2 per cent. The figures for electricity production make similar reading: 15 per cent. in China, 8.5 per cent. in the United States, and just 4.9 per cent. in the United Kingdom. The source of those figures is the Department itself. For a country with some of the best renewable resources in Europe, including wind, tidal and wave, the United Kingdom's progress-to put it kindly-looks weak.
	Let us now look at the amount invested in green technologies as part of the economic stimulus packages, which offer a real opportunity to ensure not only that money flows in the economy but that we prepare for a low-carbon future. In China, the figure devoted to green technologies, including clean energy, low-carbon infrastructure such as smart grids-who would have thought that China, a developing country, might be making more progress than us on smart grids?-electric vehicles, public transport networks and the like was 34 per cent. In the United States, it was 12 per cent. Those are the figures for the two "laggards", but the figure for the United Kingdom was just 7 per cent. That is not exactly something of which we can be proud.

John Gummer: Is not the United States figure even higher? Many of the green issues are separate from the rest of the package. The total figure is actually close to 30 per cent. The real laggard is the United Kingdom.

Graham Stuart: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for correcting me. That helps to put in context the fact that, while in international climate negotiations and diplomacy Britain has taken a leading role of which it can be proud, when it comes to our domestic performance, again and again we lag behind the countries that are typically portrayed by many as the barriers to progress.
	There is no point in just talking. We heard a reference to cobra-like speed on one hand and a sloth-like performance on the other. The reality is that we are a tiger when it comes to talking about climate change abroad, and a sloth when it comes to implementing changes at home.
	Chinese cars have already reached the level of efficiency that the United States has set as its target for 2016 under President Obama's newly established fuel economy standards. Of course, if one were to take into account measures to control population-a significant factor in determining future emissions trajectories, notwithstanding the Secretary of State's rightful point that growth in incomes can be a contributing factor to controlling populations-the Chinese are estimated to have averted 300 million births since the 1970s, perhaps using methods that we would not universally support, thus saving an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2, which is equivalent to the entire emissions of Japan.
	When one considers the relative capacities to act on climate change-a factor that is quite rightly a central principle of the UN framework convention on climate change-the Chinese actions look even more impressive. China's GDP per capita is about $6,000. In the US and the UK, the figure is about $45,000. CO2 emissions per capita are under 5 tonnes, against almost 10 tonnes in the UK and 19 tonnes in the US. Moreover, since 1990, which we can perhaps mark as the date when the world finally accepted the problem of man-made climate change, the UK has emitted four times more CO2 per capita than China.
	Clearly, China has a particular responsibility on climate change because it has a population of 1.3 billion-about a fifth of global population-but I firmly believe, having visited China with the Environmental Audit Committee, as well as meeting legislators, that China understands climate change better than most Governments around the world. It understands that it will suffer hard in an insecure climate, and it is doing all that it can to mitigate its impact on the climate within the constraints that it faces. As I mentioned in an intervention, 250 million people live on less than $1.50 a day in China. Those people are in abject poverty-nothing relative there-and China's focus is rightly on reducing poverty, but its efforts to date deserve praise, especially given the context in which it operates.

Alan Whitehead: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech with interest. I very much agree with a lot of what he says about the changing commitment in China and the progress that has been made. However, does he have any figures on the number of local authorities in China that have turned down renewable energy applications? Assuming that he does not conclude that such applications are widely turned down, does he think that perhaps command economy methods to introduce renewables should be adopted in the UK?

Graham Stuart: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being true to the Maoist or Stalinist past that he doubtless has-the attraction to the left in this country of the command economy of communism in full flight is enormous. I do not know the numbers on local authorities turning down such things. The Chinese have introduced incentives for those who run provincial areas not only on economic growth, but on decarbonising their GDP growth.
	The hon. Gentleman, like so many people from his political tradition, regards any resistance from people as best overcome by further diktat from the centre, further driving things down. As ever, they want to characterise anyone who does not like the impact of their centralising measures on their local area as necessarily dinosaur opponents who must be ridden roughshod over. That is why he doubtless supports setting up the new quango to dismiss local people's views. That is typical of the left. I fundamentally believe that he and the Government are wrong to believe that central diktat will lead to more wind farms.
	As one Labour Member rightly said, we need greater community control and ownership of assets. We need to let communities feel that they are empowered to decide where wind farms are built. We need to consider the incentives that local communities have to allow wind farms to be built. If we use incentives, listen to people and treat them with humility and respect, instead of having arrogant centralising power, we will find that we have more wind turbines, both on and offshore, than under the current procedure, which leads to the increasing alienation certainly of my constituents, who feel that their words are not listened to because people above them think that they know so much better. That is not the way to get more wind turbines, and the people will eventually slow things down. My point is that we achieve more with honey than with a stick, if I may mix my metaphors.

Alan Whitehead: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that he might well have missed a hint of irony in my previous intervention.

Graham Stuart: I must ask for the hon. Gentleman's forgiveness; I apologise for failing to pick that up, but it is so rare that I pick up irony from any Member of his political tradition.  [ Interruption. ] My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) says that what we need is bribery. Bribery is, perhaps, not the right word, but if we want renewable energy we do need to look very hard at incentives. Renewable energy can have negative impacts; a lot of people do not like wind turbines, for instance, and they are perfectly free to hold that opinion. If we want people to have things they do not necessarily like, we need to ensure that incentives are in place-or bribes, if that term is preferred-so that they then want them and compete for them because they recognise the benefits to their area and judge that, on balance, they should have them.  [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend mentions the French system. He applauds it, of course, but I am less sure about its dirigiste nature. However, the French may be dirigiste, but they buy people off as well, so I will take that as a good point.
	I was about to mention China's engagement in GLOBE International forums. Its engagement has been led by Congressman Wang Guangtao, chairman of the environment and resources protection committee in the National People's Congress. He previously served as construction Minister and the deputy mayor of Beijing. I believe he was also formerly close to the Deputy Prime Minister of our country, which is, as far as I can see, the only blemish on his record. Wang was the architect of China's climate change legislation and drafted the recent resolution on climate change that was passed by the NPC's standing committee in late August. It received very little attention, but it is a very bold document and states how central climate change is to Chinese development.
	Under the auspices of the GLOBE International commission on climate and energy security, Congressman Wang, together with US Congressman Ed Markey, drafted a set of legislative principles on climate change. Those principles were adopted by consensus at the recent GLOBE Copenhagen forum, which took place in the Danish Parliament, the Folketing, on 24 and 25 October.
	More than 100 legislators from 16 Parliaments of the major economies-Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, the European Parliament, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and the United States-endorsed a report that showed that legislators do not need to wait for a post-2012 framework to take action in their respective countries and to set us on the path to a low-carbon economy. The report showed that up to 70 per cent. of the emissions reductions needed under a scenario that would give us a reasonable chance of limiting the global average temperature rise to 2° C can be achieved through five policy levers that legislators have access to now: renewable energy, industrial energy efficiency, buildings and appliance standards, fuel efficiency and fuel standards, and forestry.
	Congressmen Wang and Markey have led the way by passing climate change legislation consistent with those principles in the Chinese NPC and the US House of Representatives-regardless of the challenges that remain to getting such legislation through the Senate-and all other delegations at the GLOBE forum gave a commitment to advance the legislative principles in their domestic Parliaments, as I am partially seeking to do today.
	I raised the legislative principles with the Prime Minister directly at Prime Minister's questions last week, and I am grateful to him for agreeing to meet a cross-party delegation, as has the Secretary of State today. The Brazilian delegation is meeting President Lula on 11 November. The Danish delegation has already met the Danish Prime Minister.
	This House was the first legislature in the world to pass climate change legislation including quantified emissions reduction targets, but so far the actions of legislators in the major emitting economies have not been joined up. If legislators were to move forward using a common set of principles, our actions would be magnified, competitive distortions would be minimised, and we would give Governments and leaders the confidence to go further and faster in the final negotiations at the UN, the latest round of which will take place in Copenhagen in December.
	The role of legislators is crucial in tackling climate change; after all, it was legislators in the US Congress who stopped any chance of the Kyoto agreement being passed. If Governments do not carry their legislators with them, they will not be able to carry forward change. Although it is important that we do not just talk to each other, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) said in a useful and interesting contribution for which the House should be grateful, we do need to carry the people whom we represent with us, and we should not assume that they necessarily agree with the consensus in this place.
	In the couple of minutes remaining to me, I wish to comment on a couple of other points. There is no pathway to the position that we all want to see in 2050 without using carbon capture and storage, because of the nature of the coal industry in China, India, the United States and the UK. I put it to the Minister that progress in this country has been painfully slow. In 2003, the Government said that action on CCS was urgent, yet we now find ourselves with a programme to have demonstration projects for CCS without being certain about the numbers-they have yet to be clarified. The idea is that the first project will be up in 2014, but that looks increasingly unlikely because of Government delay. I hope that she will look to move further and faster on CCS.
	CCS offers not just an interim technology to deal with coal before we come up with cheaper, clean alternatives, but it is one of the few realisable technologies to reverse some of the emissions into the atmosphere. The combination of biomass and a CCS-enabled plant would provide the opportunity to reverse emissions from some of our electricity-and, possibly, heat-generation. Thus, CCS offers a real opportunity. Given that Britain has some of the biggest oil companies in the world, has the experience of working in the North sea-and has that sea just sitting there-and has some of the largest engineering consultancies in the world, it has a special opportunity to lead on CCS. I am afraid that we are giving that lead away because of inaction from the Government. If this Government do not act, I hope that an incoming Conservative Government next year-if that is what we have-will take quicker and more urgent action.
	Like other speakers, I wish the Secretary of State and the Ministers in the team that goes to Copenhagen the best of luck in finding an agreement that is both realistic and binding-if not in December, at least shortly thereafter. We need something strong to send a signal and get the investment that we need to clean up our emissions path.

Alan Whitehead: I have been both encouraged and dismayed by this debate. I was dismayed when the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) repeated, yet again, the canard that because not all scientists agree with everything about all aspects of climate change, the debate is uncertain, undecided and open. A consensus does not mean that everyone has to agree. As we can see in this Chamber, there is a very encouraging consensus about the need for action on climate change. There is a consensus of strong support and good wishes for the actions that our Government will be taking to ensure that the best agreement that can be reached at Copenhagen is reached. Of course, not everyone in this Chamber has absolutely to agree for there to be a consensus-we have heard that that is the case this afternoon.
	One of the more encouraging aspects of this debate came when the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), speaking on behalf of the Opposition, emphasised the importance of the Copenhagen agreement as a key moving point in world action on tackling climate change. He likened it in some ways to the Bretton Woods agreement immediately after the second world war, and quoted what John Maynard Keynes said before that conference. I remind the House and the hon. Gentleman that John Maynard Keynes was, among other things, a strong advocate of investment in public spending and the economy in general during recovery from a recession and a strong opponent of closing services down and stopping things happening during that period of recovery. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has not in any way damaged his career as a result of his advocacy of Keynes today.
	Keynes said a number of other things; among them, he emphasised the object of skilled investment. He said:
	"The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelop our future."
	Although he was not talking about climate change, that seems to me to describe very accurately the skilled investment that is needed to ensure that the Copenhagen agreement works as strongly as we hope it will. In that respect, the recent discussions at the EU summit resulted in agreement on a substantial level of investment from the EU as part of the Copenhagen agreement. That will ensure that the less developed and developing countries can come to the table in Copenhagen much more secure in the knowledge that there will be genuine assistance for their economies and their development as part of the deal. That was described as a breakthrough, and it really was. A great deal of credit must go to the Prime Minister and the British Government. Although that is by no means a done deal in terms of exact figures, it is nevertheless a great step forward in how Copenhagen can now be cast.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State underlined the sort of clean development mechanisms that the investment will underpin. Such investment is of use and interest to all of us in ensuring that the development of such countries skips the experience that the developed world went through with its development of electricity and other utilities by exceptionally dirty means. Among other things, it means that the era of using mineral fuel as the prime engine for the economy of developed and developing economies is over and that the clear consequence of that-the carbon that has been placed in the atmosphere-is over. If that era is to be engineered into place across the world by means of these investment devices, that will be a good and skilled investment for us all-for this country as well as others.
	The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden made an important point on the extent to which the population of this country, according to recent polling, does not appear to be fully behind the idea that action on climate change is urgent. Although there is some dispute about the figures and about the number of people who believe that nothing can be done, that does not imply that such people are not interested in or concerned or worried about climate change. It seems to me that those in that particular section of popular opinion must have underlined to them the fact that something can be done, that we can take action and that we can stabilise the world's climate and the increase in temperature, which can follow a downward trajectory before, eventually, it stabilises. That is very important to what we are trying to achieve at Copenhagen in action on climate change.
	In that context, it is very important that a message is sent out about how jobs in the new low-carbon economy will greatly benefit the people of this country. However, as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) mentioned, we must also recognise that the investment figure proposed at the European summit will probably not be nearly enough to ensure that longer-term development arrangements for the developing world are secured.
	I was interested in the ECOFIN proposal that part of the levy on bunker fuels for aviation and shipping should go towards establishing clean development mechanisms in developing countries. This country's Chamber of Shipping and the United Kingdom Major Ports Group have worked together to set out how such a levy might be implemented. The suggestion is that international shipping could be registered from point of origin to point of destination, with the levy being imposed on the bunker fuel taken on at specific points. For the future of the UK economy, it must be underlined that it is not that difficult to impose a levy on international shipping. A successful levy would bring shipping within both climate trading arrangements and the Copenhagen considerations.
	I believe that the changes that are needed will become easier over time. It is an iterative process, as is the move to a low-carbon economy in this country. The fact that the science fiction films of a few years ago that are now shown late at night feature people in high-tech, futuristic outfits holding to their ears extremely clunky mobile telephones only serves to emphasise how change from the take-up of new technology can happen much more quickly than we thought.
	A significant tipping point reached in the past year has generally gone unnoticed, even though it ranks alongside a number of the other tipping points that we have discussed in previous debates. Last year, and for the first time, the worldwide investment in green energy was greater than investment in fossil fuel energy.

John Gummer: Would the hon. Gentleman set aside party politics for just a moment and agree with me that what we really want from the Government is some real enthusiasm about these new things? I long to hear the Minister of State get up and say with excitement, "We are pushing the shipping industry to do these things. We are the leaders on this matter." That would be better than being told by the Danes that we are way behind. Why does she not speak about the excitement of new technology? I want some enthusiasm and excitement from her-that is what we are asking for.

Alan Whitehead: I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is very enthusiastic about the new economic world in which we will live, and I am sure that that will be displayed in her winding-up speech. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the idea of a low-carbon economy has been underlined by the Climate Change Act 2008 and the material that has been produced about the route to such an economy-indeed, I am holding in my hand a copy of "Moving to a global low carbon economy: implementing the Stern Review". The vision of moving forward to a low-carbon economy is at the heart of the Government's economic, environmental and energy strategies for future years.
	I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is incumbent on us to underline with enthusiasm that vision for the kind of world that we want to live in, and the reasons why the British public should not fear it, but instead embrace it. Job opportunities will be created by changing our energy sources from predominantly mineral-based fuels to predominantly renewable fuels. We will have the opportunity to improve our quality of life and to tackle problems such as fuel poverty, thanks to the ambitious plans that are afoot-although I hope that even they will be superseded-to increase the energy efficiency of our homes and the standard assessment procedure ratings of our buildings. We will see changes to the way we transport ourselves around and the emergence of different forms of transport. If a considerable proportion of our energy is generated from wind and other renewable sources, energy will probably be more or less free to the customer at certain times of day. That explains why, without unduly affecting people's fuelling security and the availability of personal transportation, electric cars could play a substantial role in our economy.
	Such changes will be fundamental to the way in which our economy works, and they will go with the grain of how the public wish to live and what they want for our economy's future prosperity. There will not be the hurt and pain that some people believe will be the result of such changes. A combination of enthusiasm for those changes and enthusiasm for investment in those changes elsewhere in the world is at the heart of not only ensuring that Copenhagen is a success, but increasing understanding throughout the world that Copenhagen is essential to the future of the globe and that it can usher in a much better life for the globe. That must be an essential part of the negotiations, and I wish our negotiators in Copenhagen every success in that objective.
	Maynard Keynes also said:
	"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong",
	and getting a deal that is as close to roughly right as possible and that leads to a legally binding outcome on world carbon emissions is a noble objective that can be achieved through the effort that is being put in. I suggest that if my hon. Friend the Minister burns the midnight biogas, rather than the midnight oil, to achieve that end, I shall be very pleased.

Bill Wiggin: I apologise to Members whose speeches I may have missed during the afternoon. However, I have been able to hear a lot of the debate.
	I should like to discuss palm oil, because one of the most important things that the Government have tried to meet is the renewable transport fuel obligation. I fear that, accidentally, they have increased the chances of the orang-utan, Asia's only great ape, becoming extinct. I do not think that that was their intention, but with deforestation meaning the loss of such a vital carbon sink, and with 6.5 million to 10 million hectares of rainforest having been cleared across Sumatra and Borneo, within 15 years 98 per cent. of Indonesian rainforest could be extinct. That will have a devastating impact on climate change, on efforts to reduce emissions and on vital habitats.
	There are 7,000 Sumatran orang-utans and 12,000 to 15,000 Bornean orang-utans left in the wild. Extinction could be as near as five to 10 years away. Some 80 per cent. of orang-utan habitats have been lost or altered, and unless we stop that destruction we will fail in our well intentioned efforts to save the planet. About 90 per cent. of palm oil exports are from Indonesia and Malaysia, and palm oil is found in 10 per cent. of the products in UK supermarkets. More than 900,000 tonnes of palm oil are imported by the UK, and figures are set to rise as biofuel levels increase to meet the RTFO biofuels target of 3.5 per cent. by 2010-11.
	Biofuels may not be the long-term panacea, and we need to look to the Government to accelerate the development both of hydrogen, like in California, and of electric charging points. Indeed, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, plans to introduce up to 25,000 such points in London. We need to strike a balance between palm oil as a biofuel and the loss of rainforest and the impact of biodiversity on animals such as orang-utans, rhinos and the pygmy elephant.
	I happened to go to Borneo last year-it is in the Register of Members' Interests-and I wanted to tell the House about the work of a company called Sime Darby, which took me out there and showed me how, in Malaysia, one can combine biofuel and palm oil production with a genuine conscience and on a renewable and sustainable basis. The company's work was fantastic: it had joined the political process with the farming process-the production of that important biofuel-and it was doing so positively and brilliantly. It is time that we heard that side of the story, and about what is going on to protect the orang-utan. It is being protected in Malaysia but, tragically, not in Indonesia.

Andrew Slaughter: If the hon. Gentleman wants his political career to go well, he will be familiar with everything that the Leader of the Opposition does. The hon. Gentleman may therefore have heard recently that the Leader of the Opposition's favourite biscuits are oatcakes, which of course contain a substantial amount of palm oil. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that Opposition Members eat only orang-utan-friendly oatcakes, which do not contain palm oil?

Bill Wiggin: I know that the hon. Gentleman thinks that he has scored a goal, but if he buys Paterson-Arran oatcakes he will find that they are, indeed, orang-utan friendly-and no more monkey business from him while he's at it.
	Companies such as ASDA, Sainsbury's and Cadbury's-big, serious and sensible companies-are doing a tremendous amount to change the content of their food and other products from unsustainable to sustainable palm oil. Indeed, other companies, such as McCain, are using sunflower oil for chips, and a lot is going on to make food production more sustainable. I really welcome that and urge colleagues to encourage it in their constituencies wherever possible.

Graham Stuart: My hon. Friend is showing his expertise in this area. Does he prefer following palm oil from production all the way through to market to ensure that only sustainable oil is used; or creating certificates and selling them at the point of production, so that companies can buy them and make sure, at least for the quantity that they buy, that an amount goes forward to give a premium to sustainably produced palm oil?

Bill Wiggin: We have to do both, because, although certification is helpful, ultimately we all want proper sustainability from planting through to end use. Therefore, anything that financially encourages such practice is worth having, but ultimately we should get it right from start to finish rather than buy our way out of bad practice.
	In Hereford, we had a 350 campaign meeting in the town hall; it was extremely good, and I enjoyed taking part in it. Something very serious went on there that showed why we need to get the climate change debate handled properly and why we need success in Copenhagen. A lot of people, from all sorts of different political parties, brought forward their little dream lists of things they would like brought about, but they did not have much to do with climate change and were much more about their political and social engineering ideas. The bottom line is that the climate change agenda is an exciting opportunity not only to get the planet set up properly but to ensure that we do so in a way that will work. That means using the market and going with the grain of human behaviour, not fighting every inch of the way and introducing silly things such as the Tobin tax, which was raised at the meeting. That is not to do with climate change; it is to do with people having a social engineering agenda, and it is totally counter-productive to taking genuine steps forward. The countries that are accelerating fastest are not doing it through those sorts of methods.
	I hope that the Minister will make some comments on the 350 campaign. If we really are at a level of 385 parts per million and going the wrong way, it would be interesting to know what message she can send to the people involved to say, "Look, if we carry on doing it right we will be able to wind those parts per million back to 350 instead of seeing them go up to 450"-we should all be fearful of that.
	I worry that Britain is lagging behind. In 2007, after a decade of Labour Government, just 1.78 per cent. of energy used in the United Kingdom came from renewable sources. That is a wasted opportunity. I think that it was due not to bad intention but to bad implementation. Germany, France, Spain, Norway, America and Korea are out-performing the UK in solar photovoltaics. Germany has more than 2,500 on-farm anaerobic digesters, compared with 30 in the UK. Norway has been pioneering carbon capture and storage facilities in the North sea since the mid-1990s, while sadly only now are this Government getting serious about CCS. Combined heat and power has become the biggest source of heating in the Netherlands.
	Then we get on to another matter that I hope the Minister thinks is very serious: green jobs. She is on the record as saying that every job should be a green job. I am pretty unhappy about the Prime Minister promising 400,000 new green jobs in March and then cutting that figure to just 250,000 at the Labour party conference. What happened? Where did those jobs go? Some 150,000 jobs were to be created but now they are not. That sends out all the wrong signals. I know that the hon. Lady will have difficulty defending the Prime Minister's speeches, but we need to keep reminding the Government from all parts of the House that, as she said, jobs should be green jobs.
	Thirty-five per cent. of our carbon dioxide emissions come from energy supply, 22 per cent. from other industries, 24 per cent. from transport, 4 per cent. from services and 15 per cent. from gas and oil powered heating and cooking in homes, so there is obviously a lot more that we can do.
	Despite the Government's rhetoric, their record is lamentable. In 1997, Labour claimed in its manifesto that it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 20 per cent. below the 1990 levels by 2010. In 2003, that target had become an aspiration to move towards a 20 per cent. reduction. In 2006, the climate change programme review conceded that the target would be missed. In 2008, carbon dioxide emissions were just 10.3 per cent. below 1990 levels-barely halfway towards the Government's target, with less than two years to go. We know that Ministers want to do the right thing, but the Government do not have a great record on this. Therefore, anything we can say or do today to encourage them to get it right at Copenhagen is crucial.
	In my constituency, there is a company called Green Energy Supplies that sells microgeneration equipment-log-fired boilers. It is suffering because the microgeneration certification scheme insists on certain standards-all good stuff so far. Unfortunately, those standards are achieved under EU regulations. With our microgeneration certification scheme, there is duplication of the same regulations plus a bit of gold-plating, and as a result there is extra cost to the companies that should be the point of the spear in the attack on climate change. Those companies want to make money by selling their products and encouraging people to do microgeneration, but they are being swamped.
	I am waiting for a meeting on that matter with the Minister's Department, as promised by the Prime Minister, but I have not yet heard when it will be. I and my constituents look forward to hearing from the Government what they are going to do to encourage companies such as Green Energy Supplies in Leominster and let them get on with doing what we all want them to do, which is help cut our carbon emissions.
	The story of wind farms makes me even crosser. I passionately agree with renewable energy, but the way in which the Reeves Hill wind farm in my constituency was handled makes me want to pull my hair out. Here we have a uniquely beautiful place, and there were 1,500 objections to the wind farm applications. In my eight years as an MP, I have never seen anything like that volume of objections to such a planning application. I asked the Government to call it in and they did, but in the end it was handed back to the council, which had unfortunately already decided to approve it. None of the proper procedures to give people confidence that the planning application protected them from things that they did not want and from their lights going out were followed in the way that they should have been. We are never going to convince people that we are right about renewable energy if the planning process is not used properly-I hesitate to use the word abused. That is a huge regret.
	Another wasted opportunity is the skew in renewable energy efforts towards wind, without an equally passionate effort on tidal energy. We in this country have a unique opportunity, because we are on an island. We ought to be doing everything that we can to lead the world in alternative and effective renewable energy sources. As the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world, we can do that.
	We have a unique opportunity to set an example by investing in the research and development necessary to bring forward new technologies. We can prove that if we go with the new technology, we will not only live in a cleaner and better country but create jobs, wealth and energy and deliver what people want at a price they want. Other countries that follow on behind us will then get the benefit, just as they did with the mobile telephone revolution. They do not have to go through the early, painful years, and they can walk straight in and pick up the technology ready and fit for purpose. That is what leading economies should be doing and what we want the Government to do.
	There is no better example of where the current system is not working than on-farm biodigestion. Farmers have picked up a bill of more than £520 million for extra regulation such as the nitrate vulnerable zones. We understand why the Government wanted that regulation, but what a shame it was not coupled with something such as biodigestion so that when a dairy farmer produced huge quantities of cow muck, instead of being made to build a vast pond to store it in he would have been encouraged to build a biodigestion unit. Then that muck would have been recycled properly and the gas would have gone back into the grid, hopefully with a proper feed-in tariff.
	We can do those things, and they are being done in other countries. Why are we not leading the world on such technology? Every time we throw food away, it should go into biodigestion. We can do it. It is not rocket science, and it is happening in Germany. It is inexcusable that we hit our dairy farmers with huge bills, when they have the answers to the problems if only they were encouraged and able to invest in the right technology. It is a real tragedy.
	When I needed a new boiler in my house, I wrote to every energy company and asked whether they could help me get a combined heat and power boiler. I got a straight set of replies saying that they did not do that. We had a demonstration in the Jubilee Room by a company with, I think, a sterling coil boiler, but I could not get one. That is a real shame, and I suspect that if I could not get one it must be much more difficult for our constituents.
	We need to make it easy for people to do the right thing, encourage them to do it, and show them that when they do it, they win. If we press all those buttons, we will see climate change sceptics disappear because, actually, it will not be worth being sceptical about climate change. It should be profitable and sensible to go with what is right, and people should take pride in it, but it is just too difficult to do so at the moment. If we are finding it too difficult, our poor constituents must find it far, far worse.
	I am grateful for the opportunity to have a conversation such as this with the Government, and to say to them, "We desperately want you to get it right in Copenhagen. We are very worried because your track record is lousy, but if anybody's got the chance to do it, you have." The tragedy of the debate is that it is not something that can wait.
	I had the privilege of listening to Al Gore when he spoke to Conservative Front Benchers. We asked him what one thing he would do if he were in our shoes, and his answer was very helpful. He said that the only thing that really matters is getting global agreement. Although I have spoken about things we could do ourselves, to solve this global problem we need a global solution. At the time, that was about moving to Kyoto 2 and making it enforceable, but now it is about Copenhagen, and his words are as true today.
	I say this to the Government: get that agreement, bind in the people who are causing the trouble and help those who are suffering, but do not come back to us and say, "We tried jolly hard but we're awfully sorry, it didn't work this time." They should go out there and save the planet. After all, what better reason is there to be in politics today?

Desmond Turner: I wish that we come back from Copenhagen with a significant agreement, but whatever enthusiasm, skill and energy our delegation demonstrates there-I will be there watching and cheering them on-they cannot do it on their own. That is the nub of the problem. That is not only why we need an international agreement if we are to achieve any success in combating climate change, but why it is extremely difficult to do so.
	We have watched a sort of stately gavotte in climate change negotiations for years, going round and round in circles, producing very little. We have not even had a legally binding agreement up to now. Kyoto was not an effective, legally binding agreement, and there has been no question of compliance action for countries failing their Kyoto obligations. If we get a legally binding agreement out of Copenhagen, it will be a tremendous first for the planet.
	However, we have already had to accept the fact that, for reasons totally beyond the control of the British Government, a binding legal agreement is completely unlikely. That can happen only with the enthusiastic endorsement of the US Administration, who have been the stumbling block of climate change negotiations for the past 10 years. Although the Bush Administration have moved on and been replaced by an enlightened Administration under Obama, he is leading a country in which the debate on climate change is 10 or 20 years behind that of the rest of the world.
	The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) may pour scorn on public concern about climate change and support for action against climate change in the UK, but compared with America, that concern and support is pretty good.

Peter Lilley: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman's point is wrong. There is a lower support for, or belief in, action to curb climate change in this country than in the United States of America.

Desmond Turner: Well, I find that extremely hard to believe. The resistance to climate change in the US is very strong. I remember the first real redneck I ever met was a senator from Wisconsin. He leaned back in his chair, put his feet on his desk and said, "If it impinges badly on the American economy, there is no way we're gonna ratify Kyoto." The US economy comes first, second, third and fourth as far as a large percentage of the American populace is concerned.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that the best outcome that we can achieve at Copenhagen is international agreement to aim for a 2° target. We must be careful about investing too much emotional capital in Copenhagen. First, we cannot afford to let it be the last chance, because if we do not get what we want from it, we cannot just go home and stop trying. Secondly, we have to consider what a 2° target means in practical terms. It does not mean that if all the world's Governments agree that we will limit global warming to 2°, we can all go home and sleep safe in our beds. The Committee's reports make it clear that that target means that we would have a 50 per cent. chance of restraining global warming to 2°. That means that there is also a 50 per cent. chance of exceeding 2° and a smaller chance of warming reaching 4°. I just hope that the world's luck is better than mine, because from my personal experience I tend to get the wrong end of a 50:50 chance. Is a 50 per cent. probability acceptable? It seems to be the best that science can offer and that even the most effective international agreement can deliver, but does it make us comfortable? No, it does not, but anything less does not bear thinking about.
	What will happen if the US cannot come to the table with something a little more positive, in terms of numbers and determination? It looks as though that will not happen, because of the difficulties in its own backyard. Will that mean that other countries will fail to agree and walk away? I am somewhat optimistic on that point. For instance, I share the optimism of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) about the position of the Chinese. I was also on the Environmental Audit Committee delegation that visited Beijing, and it was clear that the Chinese had just as sophisticated an appreciation of climate change science and what needs to be done as anybody else. They are also deploying renewable energy far more effectively and far faster than we are, but then of course they do not have to worry about Conservative local authorities refusing planning permission for wind farms. So they have certain advantages.
	The Chinese are also concerned with alleviating poverty, hence their rush to industrialisation and their massive deployment of coal-fired power stations. The Chinese are conscious of the implications of that too. They are working on CCS far more quickly and effectively than we are, and I strongly suspect that if we do not get our act together, we will not be supplying CCS kits to retrofit Chinese power stations; we will be buying them from them. That would not be helpful.
	What are we going to do? Are we going to wait until we have the whole deal in place at Copenhagen before we start to up our game on climate change and CO2 reduction, or do we start to take action anyway on the things that matter-things such as having a sensible carbon price to encourage investment in the right direction of low-carbon technologies? At the moment, carbon pricing is dependent on the emissions trading scheme, which has produced a very limp carbon price indeed. We are waiting for something to emerge from Copenhagen to provide the basis for a firm carbon price, although I am a little sceptical about the likelihood of that. We have to consider what we are to do if a sensible carbon price does not emerge as a result of Copenhagen. We will have to consider unilateral action, or action at an EU level or at the highest international level possible.
	Another prime element to Copenhagen will be deforestation and the evolution of a reasonable reduced tropical deforestation regime to arrest deforestation in developing countries. That hangs in the balance, but deforestation accounts for more than 20 per cent. of current CO2 emissions in the world. Can we afford to wait? I suggest that we cannot. If we do not get from Copenhagen a binding agreement or a satisfactory political agreement, we will have to continue to work for it. If we do not get it from Copenhagen, we will have to go for it again in a few months. However, rather than waiting until we have every duck in line before we get a fully fledged legal agreement, action on aspects of climate change must be taken as soon as possible. That might mean groups of countries-led, I would hope, by the UK and the EU-acting together to start the process, even if they cannot get the consent and support of the whole world.
	We cannot afford to wait. One country cannot be allowed effectively to block progress by the whole world-much too much is at stake. The one agreement at which we must not arrive at Copenhagen is one no more valuable than the piece of paper with which Mr. Chamberlain returned from Munich. In climate change, we are faced with something just as threatening as world war. It might take longer than a world war, but the effects and resulting casualties will be just as calamitous. We have to go for it at Copenhagen, and if we do not get everything that we want there, we must be prepared to start leading action on our own.

Andrew Slaughter: This has been a wide-ranging debate. Surveying just the contributions from those on the Conservative Benches, we went from the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), who proved that he is excited, as always, about tackling climate change and who prayed in aid the Pope and denounced creationism, to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who gave us the benefit of his list. I am only sorry that he did not sing his list, as I am old enough to remember him doing in days gone by.
	However, it is understandable why we ranged across such a variety of subjects, because the issue affects us, and needs to tackled, at all levels. As this is a debate in the run-up to Copenhagen, we have considered governmental and international challenges. Before making one or two points about that, however, I would like to start with some more parochial issues, which can be dealt with at the individual and local levels.
	Let me start by praising the 10:10 campaign, which has been mentioned, which is an accessible way for individuals, local authorities and the Government to make a practical short-term difference. I have signed up, as I understand the Cabinet and Departments have. More importantly, the Government have promised an additional £20 million to ensure that targets to reduce emissions can be achieved.
	I will come to that when I talk about what local government is or is not doing, but I am sorry that neither Conservative council in my constituency has signed up to 10:10. I know that all Labour councils have been urged to sign up, and I am sorry that many Conservative councils are not doing that. What is required is not just to urge people to sign up, but to facilitate them. The fact that the Government are making grants available for insulation and the fact that we now have feed-in tariffs mean that it is possible for people to take those steps.
	One way in which I hope that I am making an effort locally is by joining the Airplot scheme, which, for those who are not familiar with it, is the purchase of a piece of land on the site of the proposed third runway at Heathrow. Many of my constituents have signed up as beneficial owners, with the support of local environmental organisations, as well as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Later this month we will plant some apple trees there, because it is on the site where Cox's apples were originally bred-is "bred" the right word? No, possibly not.
	The scheme has received a lot of publicity, but it has a serious intention. Aviation, and particularly the third runway at Heathrow, is something of a blind spot for the Government. I recently read an editorial in  The Economist that is exactly a year old, but which, perhaps not surprisingly, was reprinted last week. It concluded thus:
	"the biggest reason why"
	the Prime Minister
	"should hold off deciding Heathrow's future is that the government's own Competition Commission ruled...that BAA's monopoly of London airports should be broken up. Anticipating a direct order, the airport operator has...put up Gatwick for sale. Any new owner is likely to seek permission to build a second runway there to compete with Heathrow...That would give London...new capacity at a lower environmental cost than expanding Heathrow."
	It is no surprise that that has come true, as it pretty obviously would. As soon as Gatwick was out of BAA's hands, the potential for expansion there was clear.
	That does not mean that I am advocating a second runway at Gatwick, although that would obviously be much more sensible and environmentally friendly than having another one at Heathrow. However, what has happened shows the complete confusion in the various views on aviation that we hear, and that goes for both parties. For example, the Greenpeace website says:
	"cabinet ministers Ed Miliband and Hilary Benn...and an increasing number of Labour MPs have all spoken out against the plans to build a third runway at Heathrow,"
	whereas we had one Opposition Front Bencher saying only a couple of months ago that the plans for a third runway would be revisited if a Conservative Government were elected. At the same time, we had Boris Johnson initially saying that Heathrow would be closed and a new airport built in the Thames estuary, whereas he now says that that new airport will be in addition to a two-runway Heathrow, and that we will have an additional four runways in the south-east. This is a chaotic situation for aviation policy to be in, for all the parties.

Frank Dobson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the success of the high-speed link to the channel tunnel and the high-speed rail connections beyond it, along with the newly improved St. Pancras station in my constituency, demonstrate that the best way to deal with the demand on capacity at Heathrow is to ensure that people do not want to make short-haul flights to Europe? The sooner we build high-speed connections in the rest of Britain, the sooner we can eliminate most domestic flights as well.

Andrew Slaughter: I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I am sure that a number of Ministers would agree, too, including the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
	I do not want to make a whole speech about Heathrow, but it is impossible to ignore issues of this kind if we are to have a coherent policy across the board on climate change. The Opposition's policy, despite their volte face at the Conservative party conference a year ago, is just as confused and disingenuous on this issue.

Gregory Barker: I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing confused on our side. We are very clear that, if we win the next general election, there will be no third runway at Heathrow.

Andrew Slaughter: The hon. Gentleman says that, but we hear siren voices saying very different things. I also remind him that, three months before the instructions to the then shadow Transport Secretary at the Tory party conference, half the shadow Cabinet were lecturing my constituents on why it was in the country's economic interests to have a third runway. I do not think that many people, including most people in the environmental movement, believe what the Conservatives are saying for a moment.
	As the hon. Gentleman has introduced that theme, I want to suggest that he read another interesting article on the Greenpeace website, entitled "Do the Tories get climate change?" It is based on the fact that the 10 leading Conservative bloggers on the subject-some very influential people-all happen to be climate change deniers.

Karen Buck: Is my hon. Friend also aware that a number of leading Conservative councils have chosen not to back the 10:10 campaign and not to give local leadership on climate change? In fact, on Wednesday night, Westminster city council refused to support a motion accepting 10:10.

Andrew Slaughter: Indeed, and I have just mentioned that both my Conservative councils take the same view. That is not surprising, because most London Conservative councils are off the scale when it comes to opposing environmental projects. My local authority is the only riparian borough that opposes the Thames tunnel or any relief scheme for sewage going into the Thames.
	It is not surprising to find these views wherever we look across the Conservative party. For example, the shadow Business Secretary had some interesting views on wind farms, but the wind changed direction and he changed his mind overnight, and the shadow Chancellor did not mention climate change once in his speech to the Conservative party conference, perhaps because he thinks that there is no economic aspect to climate change. As the Secretary of State pointed out, the Conservative party refuses to clarify whether the aid budget would suffer in order to spend money on climate change, and my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) mentioned that the Conservatives' closest ally in Europe is Václav Klaus, who is a notorious-possibly one of the world's leading-climate change deniers.
	I shall read a few sentences from President Klaus's interesting book, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles. What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?" The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden might be interested in this, because it sounds very like part of his earlier speech. The book claims that climate change is a "false myth". It states:
	"The greatest challenge facing mankind today is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Global warming has become a symbol of this clash".
	These are the sort of people who are the Conservative party's natural allies. It might be said that while the Conservatives are safely in opposition, it does not really matter, but it does. Unfortunately, given the way the political cycle goes, a large number of town halls around the country are now controlled by the Conservative party, yet the role of local government in taking practical measures to resist climate change is very important.
	Let us take recycling, for example. This morning, when I went down to get my post, now hopefully restored, I found what I first thought was a personal letter, but it had in fact gone out to every household in the borough. There is perhaps some irony in sending out in envelopes so many letters about recycling. It was from my local council and it said, "Recycling: it's a duty, not a choice", telling off the residents of Hammersmith and Fulham for not doing enough to recycle. I was quite surprised to receive it, as it is the first thing that I have ever had in four years from the Conservative council on the subject of recycling. For a moment, I thought that I was perhaps not doing enough, but then I thought that one of the main reasons was that my Conservative council provides virtually no recycling service whatever.
	When the council was Labour-controlled, it provided a garden waste collection service, but that was subsequently charged for and then abolished, so that over the last two years for which figures are available, composting went down from 4.5 to 3.5 per cent. The council refuses to provide any food recycling service. When one of my constituents asked about it, the council said that it was illegal, which is strange because Ealing council next door provides such a food recycling service and I am not aware that it is illegal.
	The current council has continued a recycling service that was started by the previous Labour council, whereby one puts mixed recycling into an orange sack. A scheme has been introduced where that is now collected at the same time as general refuse. It might be said that there is nothing wrong with that, except that I have often sat behind the refuse vehicles and watched the recycling sacks being put in with the general refuse and mixed up with it. It is perhaps not surprising that the net result is that a London borough with a population that is educated and aware as far as recycling is concerned-frankly, it does not need to be told, at great public expense and waste, that it is a duty to recycle-is now recycling only 26 per cent. of its waste, which is about half of what the best councils are achieving. Before Conservative Members start lecturing the Government, as I have heard them doing this afternoon and on many other occasions, perhaps they should take the beam from their own eyes and look at what their own local authorities are doing around the country, which is on the whole, I am afraid, very little.
	Let me start to conclude-I have only a few minutes left-by dealing with one or two other subjects that have been raised, which I would like to put as questions to Ministers. The first is the issue of green jobs. The Government have said, it is true, that 1.2 million people will be in green jobs by 2015. That is surely one of the key issues both for energy and the manufacturing sector. It seems to me that this is a win-win-win situation. First, investment in renewables and green manufacturing will help the country out of recession. Secondly, it will improve our security, as the ability to generate energy domestically is a far better alternative than relying on uncertain, unreliable and expensive sources of fossil fuels from overseas. Principally, however, if we are going to tackle climate change, it is a clear and absolute requirement massively to increase the percentage generation of power through renewable sources. I am pleased to say that the target of 40 per cent. from low-carbon sources by 2020 is there and clearly stated.
	I do not agree with everything that the environmental groups have to say. I do not agree with them about carbon capture and storage or, indeed, about nuclear power, because those methods will clearly be necessary. In the short term, however, the Government should make the investment in green jobs-whether they involve wind turbines, electric vehicles, hydroelectric schemes or nuclear projects-a priority. It is clearly not a priority for Opposition parties. Currently, 60 per cent. of applications for wind farms are turned down by Conservative councils. I do not think that the Government need to be lectured, but I do think that they need to do more in that regard.
	Finally, let me refer my hon. Friend the Minister to the briefing for Copenhagen from Friends of the Earth. It makes two points. One relates to the need for developed countries to help the developing world to make strides. The Minister may not need to be told that, because the Prime Minister's statement on the European Council meeting earlier this week showed that once again he is leading the field in ensuring that money is made available to that end. The other issue, which is perhaps more contentious, is offsetting, which Friends of the Earth thinks should not be part of the climate change agenda. I might not go that far, but I would say that the developed world has an obligation not simply to offset-not simply to rid itself of its burden through deforestation programmes or other means-but actually to cut emissions. The Government need to address that at Copenhagen.
	I believe-I think that this has been acknowledged on all sides-that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have been doing a fantastic job so far in leading the international agenda, but it is clearly necessary to go further. The developed world must take more of a lead in ensuring that climate change is tackled.

Gregory Barker: This has been an excellent debate. It is rather a shame that it had to end with some rather incoherent rambling and on a slightly sour note, but I do not think that we will let that spoil our enjoyment of the afternoon.
	I was in Copenhagen for the GLOBE meeting two weekends ago and returned feeling rather more encouraged than I had expected. There has been a great deal of negative press coverage about the prospects for the Copenhagen summit, but when briefing the GLOBE conference, the Danish Prime Minister was much more upbeat than I had expected him to be, and his Conservative colleague, the Danish Environment Minister, was truly inspirational. I think we can be comfortable in the knowledge that the summit could not be in better hands than those of the Danish Government. They are doing all they can to make it the greatest success that it can be, given the size of the challenges that it has still to overcome.
	As the city's hotels, shops and local media hold their breath for the invasion by world leaders-and it is to the Prime Minister's credit that he was among the first to declare that he would be going-along with, of course, the circus of international lobbyists, non-governmental organisations and global media, it is by no means certain that, however well prepared the Danes are, there will be the successful outcome for which we hope. The world is holding its breath for a summit that will be seen through the eyes of history either as the great turning point described by many Members today-a point at which the nations of the world overcame their differences to tackle a huge challenge-or as a tragic step over a precipice of our own making.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) reminded us, it was 20 years ago this week that Margaret Thatcher first told the United Nations that we needed concerted global action to tackle climate change. While the science has become ever more compelling, the reality is that, particularly since Kyoto, global leaders have failed to rise to the challenge of decarbonising our economies. So when the international community meets in Copenhagen, we will need to be more realistic and much tougher about the need for real, short-term and immediate action and delivery plans, and not just end up with more loose commitments to targets. It really will be a summit about delivery, and I was encouraged by the Secretary of State's words about the need to include specific numbers in any agreement.
	Private sector finance will be absolutely key to all those solutions. It forms a key part of the EU contribution, but given the trillions of dollars that need to flow into decarbonising the global economy, we will look for leadership at Copenhagen and for the international frameworks that will provide the business certainty that we need if we are to achieve those investment flows.

Graham Stuart: When listening to contributions by some Labour Members, we could be forgiven for thinking that investment by companies can be taken as a given. However, we have Europe-wide and sometimes global companies, and there is limited money to invest-in fact, there is a competitive position. It is important that we get the investment in this country, so we must understand the incentives to get the private sector to invest. If we do not do that, we will have what we have now: confusion and a lack of investment, owing to the poor framework set up by the Government.

Gregory Barker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we take Europe as an example of how the world might look and consider the different regulatory regimes and the various methods of incentivising renewable energy, we can see that great strides forward have been made in some parts of Europe, such as Germany and Spain, because they have the right framework and incentives in place and the well of money has been fed primarily by the private sector. However, as many hon. Members have said today, we in the UK, where we have tremendous natural assets, ought to be the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.
	We have huge potential in our coastline and the North sea. We have amazing expertise and research and development in our universities. We have the City of London, which it is fashionable to trash, but which is a hub for raising green capital, both debt and equity, which will be vital in future. Yet we still trail lamentably behind other countries in Europe because we have not had the right framework for the past 10 years and have not been able to give businesses the confidence that they need to invest. We need to learn those lessons in a very pragmatic way and we must ensure that, at Copenhagen, we start to build the global frameworks that let us learn the lessons of the past decade or two and start to trigger the trillions of dollars that need to flow if we are to get anywhere close to our aims.

Frank Dobson: On international trade and opportunities for profit, surely the frameworks in Germany and Spain that the hon. Gentleman suggests are superior should be able to attract investment from British entrepreneurs and people in the City, who are apparently falling over themselves to fund green developments.

Gregory Barker: I do not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. Substantial UK and international investment goes into those countries, but it does not come here. We want it here in the UK, but we need it to flow around the world.
	Let me talk briefly about the many points that have been made in this excellent debate. The right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) spoke about the opportunities for business, particularly the manufacturers in his constituency, and the carbon capture and storage infrastructure opportunities. He is right that there are real opportunities, not just in his constituency but throughout the UK. He also said that the rain forest needs a really important boost at Copenhagen: there cannot be a successful Copenhagen outcome if it does not include a significant boost for rain forests. Ecosystem protection across the board needs to be incorporated into any framework agreement, recognising the job that wetlands and mango groves do.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) was right to call for action now. I totally agree with him that now is the moment when we need to come together to act, for political, scientific and business reasons. If we do create that framework, hopefully investment will start to flow.
	The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) spoke with great knowledge and passion about the immense climate challenges facing Bangladesh. He truly informed the debate about that country's particular challenges. My hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells will visit there in the near future. Conservative Members are certainly very aware of the country, but the right hon. Gentleman has enlightened me on the subject today.
	My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) is to be congratulated on the Green Energy (Definition and Promotion) Bill, which he championed and took through the House of Commons and which passed through the House of Lords today. He is also to be congratulated on the work he does as a trustee of Plantlife. He introduced an interesting dynamic to the debate by saying it is not really about the preservation of a planet, but about the preservation of human civilisation and the culture, values and history that we hold dear. He is absolutely right. He may have sounded depressed at times, but I think he helped to instil a high degree of urgency through his call for a robust global framework, and in particular a global price for carbon.
	The hon. Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) spoke about the need to focus on carbon technologies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) struck a slightly discordant note, but he is always articulate and very well informed.

Peter Lilley: And usually right.

Gregory Barker: I am afraid I do not necessarily agree with my right hon. Friend. He described himself today as, I think, putting forward a lukewarm case for what I guess we would call climate scepticism.

Peter Lilley: It was a case for lukewarmism.

Gregory Barker: I stand corrected. Let me make a serious point, however. I know that my right hon. Friend is very genuine in his beliefs, but if we were talking about the probability of our children or grandchildren suffering not from climate change, but from cancer, would he indulge in the same rhetoric about probabilities and ratios? If we were talking about a 60 per cent. probability of our kids contracting cancer in the 2020s or 2030s, or a 50 per cent. probability of our grandchildren contracting cancer in the 2050s, would he engage in that same academic rhetoric? I think not, but as sure as eggs is eggs, for so many people around the world climate change, if it goes unchecked, will result in death and destruction as surely as cancer would. That may be an inappropriate comparison, but for a lot of people, particularly in the developing world, checking climate change will be a matter of life or death, and we must remember that.

Peter Lilley: My hon. Friend asks a question. May I respond in the form of a question? Does he not realise that most medical research is conducted on precisely that sort of statistical basis, in that a product that has only a small chance of causing cancer goes into the public domain, whereas we legislate against products that have a large chance of doing so? I think that global warming is likely to cause lukewarming, not serious problems. My hon. Friend asks whether I would raise concerns about cancer on a statistical basis in other spheres. Indeed, I have done so: I argued in favour of the legalisation of cannabis, because the chance of getting cancer from cannabis is negligible, while the chance of getting the disease from tobacco is very great.

Gregory Barker: I appreciate the points my right hon. Friend makes, but even if we are at the lukewarm end of the range of probabilities, that is still a very substantial problem. If I thought there was any chance of actions taken by myself or a Government of whom I was a member leading to a 10, 20 or 30 per cent.-let alone a 60 or 70 per cent., or, as the IPCC believes, a 93 per cent.-probability of such an outcome, I would strain every sinew and not begrudge spending any money that I thought was necessary to avert that.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) informed me that he would not be here now because he has another engagement to attend, but I should mention that he spoke with his usual passion and informed the debate with his particular expertise. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) spoke about hydrofluorocarbons, and I agreed with a great deal of what he said on that subject. He only has to wait for a Conservative Government to see robust action on regulating HFCs out of the system.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart), who does a huge amount of work on this agenda in his role as the international vice-president of GLOBE International and as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, spoke at length about China. He is one of the more knowledgeable China-watchers in the House-

Edward Miliband: Sinologists.

Gregory Barker: Indeed. My hon. Friend discussed a lot of the developments in China that people do not appreciate-for example, the fact that it is ahead of us in the amount of renewable energy that it generates and that, sadly, it is increasingly ahead of us in the deployment of CCS technology. If we are not careful, we could be patting ourselves on the back for agreeing to stretching, long-term targets, while in the meantime the Chinese are taking practical action in the near-term that will be more meaningful in fighting man-made climate change.
	The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) spoke about deforestation and made some excellent points on micro-hydropower with which I fully agree. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) mentioned that there remains a job of work to do to educate and inspire the public, and I must agree with him. Ultimately, that comes down to political leadership: nobody can dodge the fact that if we do not inspire, motivate and educate from this place, we cannot blame or push that off on to anybody else. All of us in this place have some responsibility for that.
	The hon. Member for Eltham was making some good points until he stumbled into an incoherent ramble about the EU and the role of the Conservative party. So much nonsense is talked about that. This Government claim to have a very good working relationship with most of the Governments in Europe, including those of the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Spanish. Those countries all have centre-right Governments of parties with whom members of our governing party do not sit in the European Parliament; they sit in opposing political alliances, but that does not stop our Government forming very good working relationships, and we would look to build on that. Trying to see the whole European climate change agenda through the prism of the seating arrangements at the Strasbourg Parliament is absolute nonsense.

Clive Efford: I was just about to agree with the hon. Gentleman because France does have a centre-right Government. That makes the criticism of his party all the more potent, given that it comes from one of the main centre-right countries of the EU. That underlines my point about how his party has isolated itself from the mainstream of Europe- [Interruption.]

Gregory Barker: As my hon. Friends point out, that was certainly no criticism of the climate change agenda. As we have repeatedly pointed out, Europe is ideally suited to deal with climate change. We want to work closely with our European partners on climate change and not on other issues.
	The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) held the House spellbound-at least, there was not a great deal of movement while he was speaking-with his own distinctive form of enthusiasm. My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) made a typically well informed contribution. He is our leading expert in the House on the orang-utan and he spoke with real passion about his visit and his first-hand experience, and about the destruction of the great ape's natural habitat. He also highlighted how we are lagging behind our competitors in developing new technologies and green jobs.
	There is no clear divide between our position on the Copenhagen talks and the Government's. There are different areas of emphasis, but I do not want to finish by being churlish or criticising the Government for their lack of progress over the past 10 years. I look across the Chamber at the DECC team and I know that they are personally very committed to securing the best possible agreement. I do not underestimate the challenges that they will face, but I hope that they realise that they will go to Copenhagen with the full support of Her Majesty's Opposition. If we can help to convince the world that Britain is sincere, determined and ambitious to seek the most robust and far-reaching agreement, the Secretary of State only has to ask.

Joan Ruddock: This has been an excellent debate and I want to comment on the various things that people have said, to try to answer the questions and then to make some remarks of my own.
	The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) said at the beginning of the debate that he wanted a clear message to come from it that there should be a complete unity of purpose, and that has just been echoed by his deputy. We take that to heart and appreciate what has been said. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells invited me to apprise the House of the construction of the €100 billion, and I am happy to do that. We believe-and what the EU has proposed-is that the €100 billion should be made up of revenue raised through the international carbon market, countries' efforts and international public finance. Public finance is also needed to support early action and the EU estimates that the total international public finance needed is between €22 billion and €50 billion. That is what we are talking about from 2020, but we acknowledge that there needs to be early action. That requires public money, which we will have to find a means of raising, and the EU and we in the UK have said that we will do our bit.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke about the vast potential of the new low-carbon market, and said that the UK was well placed. We agree entirely on that point and see it as a means of bringing ourselves out of recession and of creating many more jobs. He also spoke of the need for additionality in support for developing countries and that is why we proposed the figure of 10 per cent. We see that as a means of limiting the amount of money that can be said to meet both poverty and climate needs.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) welcomed the EU agreement on finance and expressed concern for developing countries which would need that for adaptation. That is very much the line that we have taken. He said that we needed to make our numbers add up in a way that was guided by science, and that is entirely the point that the Government have made. He spoke about the new Stern analysis, which is calculated in gigatonnes, and the gaps that exist. He referred to the work of legislators and we encourage and appreciate the work that is done by GLOBE. My right hon. Friend spoke of deforestation and the need to ensure that in any deal there needs to be protection of forest people. That is something, again, that the UK Government have pressed for strongly at all times during the negotiations.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said that he hoped that we would be encouraged by the debate. I can assure him that we have been. He said that this is one agreement that could compare with Bretton Woods or peace treaties after the war, but I believe that it is the most important negotiation that the world will ever see. If it fails, we will have catastrophic global climate change and it will be irreversible. It cannot fail.
	He asked about the nature of the agreement. Let me make it very clear that we believe that at this meeting in Copenhagen we need a politically binding agreement: what people say there has to bind them in the name of their countries. There can be no doubt about that. The legal agreement will take time and effort afterwards, and the timetable needs to be announced at Copenhagen. Yvo de Boer has said that he believes that it will have to be concluded by the end of 2010. The hon. Gentleman said that it is important that we reach a politically binding agreement with numbers, and I can confirm that numbers have to be on the table. We are very clear about that.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey asked us to go further than 34 per cent., and we have said that the UK will raise its contribution if we get a global deal in line with the EU promise. He asked where the money would come from, and I think that I have explained that already. He spoke about the institutions involved and said that they should not include the World Bank. Although no decisions have been taken, we believe that some new architecture is needed, as well as improvements in the existing institutions.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be new sources of finance, and we are very clear that they will be necessary. He spoke about levies on aviation and shipping: I can tell him that they are under discussion, although our preference in the long term is that those sectors should be treated as part of the carbon trading scheme.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) spoke passionately about Bangladesh and the problems that it faces that go beyond its Government and peoples. He said that they are down to all of us, and we agree completely, as the voices of such countries are critical in this debate. We very much support the adaptation efforts that are already under way in Bangladesh.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) spoke about the need to take action now, and asked how we would bridge the gap between the €100 billion that European leaders have agreed on and the €400 billion that developing countries have said that they will require. We know that developing countries need to grow their capacity, as there is no way that we can throw such huge sums at this problem without enabling those countries to deal with and plan for the money's use. For that reason, there will be a lead-in period, with the €100 billion being distributed annually from 2020. In the run-up to that, funding streams from public funds will have to be increased, and I have spoken already about fast-track moneys.
	The hon. Gentleman said that there was a strong argument for a carbon market and spoke about the potential of assistance in tackling deforestation through credits. Again, we agree with that and believe that ultimately it will be the way to raise the huge sums that will be required.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) talked about the role of the carbon markets, and I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done in that regard. He also spoke about the nature of the agreement, a subject that I think I have dealt with already.
	The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said that we needed more action by Government. He also spoke about HFCs, which I will come to later when I respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford). The right hon. Gentleman thought that it was a pity that we could not sign up to the 10:10 campaign, but we were being asked to commit the whole public sector and could not possibly mandate every school and hospital. However, we have certainly said that we will do as much as we can and that we will see whether we can increase our commitment.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) was rather pessimistic and said that Copenhagen would be a missed opportunity, but I remind him that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that the talks will go to the wire. We are determined to do whatever is necessary to get there. My hon. Friend said that nuclear power would not be ready in time and that we did not have the renewable energy sources that we would need. He linked that to peaking emissions, but this country's emissions have already peaked. They will continue to come down, and we already have under way projects involving wind and other new technologies.
	The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) criticised the Government for advertising to try to increase peoples' understanding of the problem, and then criticised us because people did not understand it. He cannot have it both ways-[Hon. Members: "Oh yes we can!"] Some Opposition Members say that he can have it both ways, but he cannot. He said that the majority of scientists may disagree with his point of view, and that is correct. That is where the global consensus comes from and no one has suggested that it is absolute. Of course there is variation in what people think, but we are going with the majority.
	The right hon. Gentleman stated that the Met Office had not made data available, and we have taken steps to try to make that happen. The Met Office has written to all those who provided data to ask whether they will agree to release those data.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) made an excellent speech. As a great champion of renewables, she pleaded for more help for renewable energy in emerging markets, and of course that is something that we are giving.
	The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) spoke about various matters with which I have already dealt, so I hope that he will accept my previous answers. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham talked about HFCs. We are pushing for a global agreement on a phase-down of HFCs. He might not think that that is enough, but that is the way to make progress. The process forms part of the Copenhagen agreement, and we will see that it is dealt with effectively there.
	The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) quite properly spoke about China and rightly praised the great efforts being made by that country, which we equally applaud. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) paid welcome tribute to the Prime Minister's intervention on climate financing, for which we were grateful.
	The hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) made a passionate plea about orang-utans and palm oil exports. I will be examining that issue when I go to Sumatra next week. I have already met the industry, and I will talk to the country's Government when I get there.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) focused on the US and asked several what-if questions. I have to tell him that there is no plan B-we are going to Copenhagen to get a deal. We hope that the US will be able to do what is necessary, and until there is failure, we do not contemplate failure. He talked about aspects of the action that needs to be taken now on adaptation. We are doing things now; we are not waiting for Copenhagen. We are supplying money to the Congo basin, and we have got £800,000 into the climate investment funds.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Slaughter) spoke about the 10:10 campaign. I am glad that he is pleased about the £20 million and I have something more to tell him: the Department of Energy and Climate Change will be joining the 10:10 campaign as of today because we can sign up to a further effort.

Peter Lilley: rose-

Graham Stuart: rose-

Joan Ruddock: I am not giving way; I am going to finish.
	As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said as he opened the debate, we need an agreement that is ambitious, effective and fair. We have worked consistently here and abroad to advance such an agreement. We have accepted our own responsibilities by putting in place the first carbon budgets in the world, accepting ambitious binding targets and being willing to go further in the event of a deal. We have driven ambition across the EU. We have intervened on finance at a critical stage. We have worked with forest states to get deforestation into the agreement, and we have provided funding to get the adaptation fund operational. Our officials have worked around the clock to add their expertise to this massive endeavour.
	No one should be surprised if at times frustration leads to pessimism when more than 100 nations sit down to grapple with more than 200 pages of negotiating text. However, few doubt that this is a deal that the world must have. I know, because I have had the privilege of going to Greenland and seeing for myself the melting Arctic sea ice. I know, because I have met Ursula, from the disappearing Carteret islands, who said:
	"For leaders it is only a lifestyle change; for us it is life and death".
	I know, because last week I heard the urgent plea of Vice-President Waheed from the Maldives when he asked assembled Ministers what he would tell his people if no deal was forthcoming.
	We need a deal to save the land, lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the developing world, and we need a deal because climate change affects us too, with a cost to our economy, our environment and our security. However, climate change is not just a message of threats and potential disaster, although we must take that to heart. It is also a positive message-a call to a global transition to a low-carbon economy. It is a call to a world in which unprecedented co-operation will have to come about, to a world in which technologies are shared for mutual benefit and resources are properly conserved, and to a world that respects nature and provides us all with a safer, cleaner and greener place to live and work.
	I thank hon. Members for the good wishes that they have given us today, because all that is what is at stake in the Copenhagen talks, and it is why we in this Government will do everything that we can to achieve the ambitious agreement that this world so desperately needs.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House has considered the matter of climate change: preparation for the Copenhagen climate change conference.

Business without Debate
	 — 
	notices of questions

Ordered,
	That, notwithstanding sub-paragraph (a) of the proviso to paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 22 (Notices of questions, motions and amendments), notices of questions to the Secretary of State for Scotland for oral answer on Wednesday 25 November may be given on Wednesday 18 November.- (Mary Creagh.)

Regional Select Committee (London)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That Ms Karen Buck, Jeremy Corbyn, Clive Efford, Siobhain McDonagh and Mr Andy Slaughter be members of the London Regional Select Committee.- (Mary Creagh.)

Justine Greening: I wish to raise some objections to this motion. The House first considered the matter back in June, and at the time there was a wide-ranging debate involving Members from all parties. Many MPs expressed concerns about the creation of the London Regional Select Committee and the impact that it might have on London's devolved settlement, which is of course so very important to Londoners. Many Members were surprised that, having debated the issue in Parliament, it apparently disappeared from view for so many months. We kept an eye out to see what progress Ministers would make, and the Leader of the House was at the Dispatch Box to tell the Members in the Chamber on the day that we debated it how important she felt it would be in addressing what she called an "accountability gap" in London issues. Yet here we are, almost six months later, after no real progress and, all of a sudden the motion is brought before the House with no chance to debate it further.
	So I want to take some time this evening once again to talk about the concerns that Opposition Members had. We were worried that the London Regional Select Committee would cost money. It is money that we as taxpayers should be saving or putting into supporting some of the many small businesses throughout London that are struggling to survive-particularly those that have been hit by the withdrawal of transitional relief in this year's rate bills, and those that are concerned about rises in next year's bills.
	We also believe that there are better, more cost-effective alternatives to the Committee. One suggestion that I made to the Leader of the House, and which she never thoroughly addressed, was the possibility of creating London questions. London is one of a number of United Kingdom regions that have devolved government. Wales has its Wales questions and Scotland has its Scotland questions, but here in London we cannot have London questions. A London question session would be an opportunity for all London MPs to ask questions, whereas a London Regional Select Committee would be necessarily a much smaller group of London MPs, excluding other Members who would no doubt wish to be part of it. When we raised the issue back in June, the Government gave us no assurances that the Members on the Committee would even be London Members representing London communities, which I am sure you can imagine, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was a real concern for us.
	There is no evidence that existing Select Committees do not look at London issues. If we look at the work that they have done over the past several years, we find that they have absolutely looked at London issues. The Select Committee on Transport has produced a report on the London congestion charge and the performance of London Underground; the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has produced excellent and interesting reports on the London Olympics; the Select Committee on Education and Skills, when it existed, produced a report on skills in London; and I am sure that many Members will remember that only this year the Select Committee on Home Affairs produced a report on counter-terrorism and community relations in the aftermath of the London bombings. Select Committees have every ability to conduct positive and useful inquiries.

Clive Efford: I have listened to the hon. Lady with a great deal of interest, but what is she afraid of? She has called for the opportunity to ask questions on London, but she does not want the opportunity to cross-examine people who provide essential services to the people whom we represent. Surely that would be far more effective than a question-and-answer session.

Justine Greening: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. However, surely that is the role of the London Assembly. He seems to have forgotten its existence, yet it was his Government who brought in the devolution settlement. If there are concerns about the accountability of the London Mayor, we should be strengthening the ability of the London Assembly to hold him to account. Instead, the Government have come up with an entirely spurious way of doing it-
	 Debate  adjourned (Standing Order No. 9(3)).
	 Debate  to be resumed  on Monday 9 November.

Business without Debate
	 — 
	Regional Select Committee (West Midlands)

Resumption of adjourned debate on Question (2 November),
	That Mr David Kidney be discharged from the West Midlands Regional Select Committee and Mrs Janet Dean be added.

Hon. Members: Object.
	 Debate to be resumed on Monday 9 November.

Regional Select Committee (South West)

Resumption of adjourned debate  on Question  (29 October),
	That Linda Gilroy be discharged from the South West Regional Select Committee and Roger Berry be added.

Hon. Members: Object.
	 Debate to be resumed  on Monday 9 November.

PETITION
	 — 
	Equitable Life (Daventry)

Tim Boswell: I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of residents of the constituency of Daventry in respect of the parliamentary ombudsman's report on Equitable Life. The petitioners state that they are, represent or support members, former members or personal representatives of deceased members of Equitable Life Assurance Society. I should declare to the House that a member of my family is a former member of that society and a member of my staff is a current member of that society. The petitioners refer to the findings of the ombudsman, particularly in relation to matters concerning maladministration leading to injustice.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of residents of the constituency of Daventry in Northamptonshire,
	Declares that the petitioners either are or they represent or support members, former members or personal representatives of deceased members of the Equitable Life Assurance Society who have suffered maladministration leading to injustice, as found by the Parliamentary Ombudsman in her report upon Equitable Life, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 16 July 2008 and bearing reference number HC 815; and further declares that the Petitioners or those whom they represent or support have suffered regulatory failure on the part of the public bodies responsible from the year 1992 onwards, but have not received compensation for the resulting losses and outrage.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to uphold the constitutional standing of the Parliamentary Ombudsman by complying with the findings and recommendations of her Report upon Equitable Life.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000411]

TAXATION (GAMBLING)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. -(Lyn Brown.)

Philip Davies: I thank the Speaker for granting this important debate on the taxation of gambling. I hope that this brief canter round the course will not preclude him from allowing longer debates on a similar subject in Westminster Hall if requested in future.
	Although I have no pecuniary interest to declare, I should declare that as a former bookmaker I have a great interest in the subject of gambling in general and the taxation of gambling in particular.
	It is important to set the scene. The UK leisure industry employs 2.3 million people-9 per cent. of the UK work force-and accounts for 25 per cent. of all new jobs. There are 200,000 hospitality, leisure and gambling businesses in the UK, generating £85 billion per annum, or 6 per cent. of gross domestic product. It is Britain's sixth largest industry. The Exchequer receives more than £30 billion a year from the industry, and the gambling sector contributes more than £1.5 billion to the Exchequer in betting and gaming duty alone. The industry has an enviable reputation across the world for its regulatory regime and for the high-quality and responsible operators within it.
	However, recent Budgets have imposed taxation rises on the gambling industry. In 2007, we had an increase in the casino tax bands; in 2006, we had the introduction of amusement machine licensing duty and VAT on fixed-odds betting terminals in licensed betting offices instead of gross profits tax at 15 per cent; and in 2009, we had the introduction of casino duty at marginal rates on poker income. Also in 2009, we had an increase in bingo gross profits tax from 15 to 22 per cent.
	I want to concentrate initially on bingo. It is an important fabric in the local community. More than 1 million people play regularly, at more than 500 clubs nationwide. It plays an important and positive part in local areas, through employment, charity work and, perhaps most importantly of all, social interaction for many people. A number of Government decisions have had a significant impact on bingo, resulting in more than 100 clubs closing since 2003. More have closed so far in 2009 than in the whole of 2008. For example, there has been the smoking ban, which had a devastating impact on bingo clubs, and the reregulation of machines. In that context the latest Budget, which removed VAT and increased the gross profits tax on bingo from 15 to 22 per cent., is the final nail in their coffin.
	The Treasury's Red Book estimated that the changes made in the Budget would benefit the industry by approximately £15 million. In fact, the reverse has been the case. The Budget led to a tax increase on the industry of approximately £16.5 million. Perhaps the Exchequer Secretary can confirm whether the intention was to benefit the bingo industry, and whether she accepts that the Budget has actually resulted in a tax increase on it.
	As the Exchequer Secretary knows, the Bingo Association commissioned Ernst and Young to understand the impact of the 2009 Budget on the bingo industry and seek clarity as to what the correct level of GPT should be to ensure consistency with the Red Book projections. The main findings of the Ernst and Young report were, first, that to achieve the Exchequer yield anticipated in the Red Book, the rate of GPT should have been set at 18 per cent. rather than 22 per cent.; secondly, that even the smallest single bingo club companies, which are the most vulnerable to closure, particularly in the current economic climate, will suffer an increased tax burden; and thirdly, that the effective rate of tax for bingo operators has increased from 23.6 per cent., which I believe was already too high, to 25.2 per cent.
	The Treasury predicted that the loss to the Exchequer from the removal of VAT on participation fees would be £50 million in 2009-10, rising to £55 million in 2010-11. Ernst and Young believes that the real reduction was only £41.5 million, which is also based on a 17.5 per cent. VAT rate. That is why the increase in gross profits tax to compensate is way over the top.
	We have to remember that those conclusions were based on the presumption that the bingo market would remain stable over the next two to three years. Unfortunately, due to the smoking ban and the recession, the closure of clubs means that that is probably wildly optimistic. That can be illustrated by the decline in tax receipts from the sector. Bingo duty receipts have fallen from £77.2 million in 2006, before the smoking ban, to £62.7 million in 2008. In the light of that trend, it is perhaps surprising that the Treasury has predicted an increase in duty receipts of £35 million by 2012.
	Whatever the Government's motivation, and despite their desire to see tax receipts rise to do something about the national debt, the increased taxation burden will only mean more and more clubs closing, leading to higher unemployment and lower tax receipts for the Exchequer. Surely increasing taxes on bingo in that way is grossly unfair given its importance in many areas. To do so during the deepest recession since world war two can only be described as vindictive. Why has it happened? Is it because the Prime Minister is vehemently anti-gambling, even though he seems to be quite happy to gamble with the nation's finances? Is it because the Government fear the reaction of the  Daily Mail? Or is it because this Labour Government are now so out of touch with their working-class roots that they no longer care about bingo or the people who play it?
	Will the Exchequer Secretary tell me whether the Government accept the findings of Ernst and Young? If not, why not? If they do, what are they going to do to rectify the situation? I do not stand here to ask for preferential treatment for bingo. I merely ask that it be treated fairly in relation to other forms of gambling.
	I shall move on to gaming machines, which also have an impact on bingo clubs. The Government are proposing to replace amusement machine licensing duty and VAT with a gross profits tax on machines. They claim that that will be consistent with other forms of gambling taxation and therefore be a simplification, and that it will be fiscally neutral rather than a tax-raising measure. However, the Government said that about the changes to GPT for bingo, so I hope the Minister understands why I am extremely sceptical that any such change would be fiscally neutral, as are many in the industry. I am afraid that the Government have completely lost their credibility and trust in that respect.
	While we are on the subject of machines, may I make it clear to the Minister that machine income is now absolutely critical to preserving the futures of both bingo clubs and betting shops? Without machine income, many would go to the wall. On average, a third of both revenue and profit in bingo clubs, and about 40 per cent. of betting shop revenues, now comes from machines. Any tax increase would therefore be catastrophic for them, especially as roughly a quarter of betting shops now make less than £17,000 profit a year. Those shops, which make such low profits, still employ almost 10,000 people.

Don Foster: Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House whether there was an opportunity in 2003 to investigate GPT for machines? At that time, the Government dropped the proposal and said that they would not look at it again until conditions in the industry stabilised. Does he believe those have stabilised, or have they got worse, as he is describing?

Philip Davies: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and he is absolutely right-the state of the industry has not stabilised, but got worse. That only fuels the suspicion that the change is being made to try secretly to raise revenue rather than to help an industry that is on its knees.
	I therefore urge the Minister not to make the change. The situation is extremely complicated anyway given the nature and category of machines, and tax differentials, which will probably be inevitable, will make it virtually impossible to come up with a fiscally neutral tax rate package. Getting the rate wrong would lead to very many job losses. The Association of British Bookmakers has predicted that the wrong rate could lead to almost 8,000 job losses in the bookmaking industry alone.
	As we know, we are competing in an ever more globalised market, none more so than the online gambling industry. Businesses can locate themselves in the most tax-advantageous part of the world and operate from there, which is what we have seen happening in recent years.
	The matter has now come to a head, with William Hill and Ladbrokes deciding to move their online betting facilities offshore. We should not criticise them for doing so. They have a duty to their shareholders and it has become totally unsustainable for them to keep their business here. For every £100 profit they make online, they will pay £1 or £2 in tax offshore, whereas they would pay £36 in the UK in a combination of GPT, VAT, corporation tax and horse racing levy. Clearly, it is an absolute no-brainer for them. Indeed, we should probably be grateful and surprised that William Hill and Ladbrokes have kept their online business onshore for so long, given that many of the firms that they compete with, which do not have shops in the UK, have been at such a competitive advantage for so long.
	Surely the Government want to do something to bring those firms back onshore. They are missing out not only on tax revenues, but literally thousands of jobs that we could have here are instead being taken in places such as Gibraltar. Of course, the racing industry is missing out on the horse racing levy payments that bookmakers in this country pay. Even though the Government could realistically never have a tax regime as competitive as those offshore-especially taking the levy into account-I believe that there is sufficient good will among bookmakers that many, if not all, would come back onshore if the UK tax regime was much more competitive than it is.
	I do not believe that doing nothing is an option. I have already highlighted how so many betting shops are making barely any profit. Added to that, the telephone betting side of the industry is in rapid decline. Indeed, Ladbrokes has reported that its telephone betting revenues were down 41 per cent. in the first half of this year, and despite my very best efforts, it actually made a loss on that part of its business.
	On the other hand, the online business has the potential for substantial growth. Therefore, may I suggest that the Minister speaks with bookmakers at the earliest opportunity to find a rate of tax that the Government could introduce to bring the online business back onshore? I suggest that that would need to be around the 2 to 3 per cent. mark. She may think that we cannot afford to reduce tax on online gambling by that amount and fear being criticised for encouraging gambling if she does so. However, it would not increase gambling, as people in the UK can already bet online with these firms. The Minister must also recognise that a tax of 15 per cent. on nothing yields nothing, whereas a tax rate of 2 to 3 per cent. on a business with a turnover in the billions of pounds would raise much needed revenue for the Treasury. It would lead to greater levels of employment, helping the people who got the jobs, increasing the tax take, reducing unemployment payments and giving the horse racing industry more income from the levy. In short, everybody would be a winner, except for the bookmakers who would face higher costs than they do offshore, but I still think that they would return to the UK if their online businesses were charged a more competitive rate of tax.
	If the Minister remains sceptical on that point, I ask her to take a leaf out of the Prime Minister's book. When he was Chancellor, he faced a similar dilemma to the one that I have set out, back in 1999 when Victor Chandler moved his UK bookmaking operation to Gibraltar to avoid paying UK taxes, in particular general betting duty. That tax was payable on fixed-odds bookmakers and set at 6.75 per cent. It was effectively a levy on the stakes placed by customers. As more bookmakers from the UK moved to avoid this duty, and more threatened to follow, the then Chancellor abolished general betting duty in 2001 and introduced the gross profits tax.
	The Government need to act again to deal with this second wave of bookmakers moving abroad, and it is more important this time as more and more gambling moves online and less and less is carried out in the traditional arena of betting shops and telephone betting. It is also easier to regulate an industry based here. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the importance of the gambling industry to the UK economy, and will take advantage of the opportunities that I have outlined.
	Bingo and betting shops play a very important role in the local community, and just as pubs have successfully demonstrated their importance in the local community, I hope that the Minister will accept that bingo halls and betting shops play a similar role for many people. I hope she will discuss these matters with the gambling industry and that the Chancellor will bring forward measures in the Budget to address these concerns. I look forward to hearing her response.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on securing the debate. I am glad to have the opportunity to continue the important discussion on the taxation of gambling. He mentioned three main issues-bingo clubs, gaming machines and online gambling-and I shall refer to all three.
	The Government have worked hard in recent times to take on board the views of all interested parties with regard to gambling taxes. We continue to engage closely with relevant businesses and trade associations, including the Bingo Association. My officials and I enjoy a close working relationship with many gambling stakeholders, which helps to ensure that the Government can respond to industry challenges in a fair and appropriate manner.
	As the hon. Gentleman will understand, I cannot use this debate to pre-empt any decision that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor may make on gambling taxation in the pre-Budget report or in next year's Budget. However, I am happy to talk generally about the Government's policy on gambling tax and reason for acting.
	As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, numerous changes were made to the gambling tax regime at Budget 2009-bingo participation fees became VAT exempt, and bingo duty was increased to 22 per cent. For consistency, player-to-player gaming in casinos was made VAT exempt, and became liable to gaming duty. The Government also committed to consulting on the future of gaming machines taxation. The consultation began on 16 July and formally closed on 23 October. The responses are being analysed by my officials, who are clarifying information with the industry where necessary.
	As I and my predecessors have told the House on many occasions, the Government recognise the importance of bingo clubs to their local communities, especially for the elderly and many women. As I have mentioned, since Budget 2009, bingo in licensed premises has been subject to bingo duty at 22 per cent. of gross profits. The changes in the Budget in 2009 continue a process of reform begun in 2003 when the bingo tax regime was considerably more complex and the tax burden higher. The hon. Gentleman asked for the reasons behind the changes in the Budget. The intention was simplification. We should remember that the effective tax rate for bingo in 2003 was about 35 per cent., and before the Budget was estimated to be about 24 to 25 per cent. Those estimates were formed from information provided by the bingo industry.
	I would like to emphasise that the Government keep all aspects of the tax system under continuous review, and I have taken a keen interest in the taxation of bingo clubs during my time as Exchequer Secretary. As part of the usual pre-Budget process, I held numerous meetings with gambling groups, including the Bingo Association, and I have been in correspondence with many hon. Members regarding bingo tax. Over the summer, the Bingo Association provided more information to my officials on the impact of taxation on the bingo industry, including the Ernst and Young report that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I had a meeting two or three weeks ago at which we discussed the content of that report.
	I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that we need to analyse that information in detail and to take our time to ensure that it is accurate, given that the bingo industry is now saying that the information that it gave us before the Budget might not have been accurate. It is important that we analyse the document correctly. It is being analysed by my officials as we speak, and will of course be taken into account.
	Regardless of any future decision on bingo taxation, the bingo industry has benefited from recent regulatory changes implemented by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Since February this year, bingo clubs have been able to offer up to eight category B3 gaming machines for play-an increase from four. Those changes could provide a boost to takings from gaming machines in bingo clubs.
	I was also asked why we are looking again at gross profit tax on machines, given that we had the consultation in 2003 on gaming machines. The key reason for the decision not to go ahead with GPT on machines in 2003 was the uncertainty regarding the then Gambling Bill-it is now the Gambling Act 2005. The industry has now had a chance to adjust to the Act, and we are looking again at GPT. However, I stress that no decisions have been taken.
	The consultation document proposed replacing the current duty-based regime with a tax based on gross profits. We have received responses from many industry groups, trade bodies, companies and individuals, and it is clear to me that this area arouses strong emotions. When I met industry representative groups in the Treasury, there was a divergence of opinions between them. Some were not averse to a gross profits tax in principle depending on the rates; other groups were totally opposed in principle.
	For my own research, last week I visited two adult gaming centres and a seaside arcade in my constituency. I met the owners and operators, and we had a robust discussion about the consultation. All I can say is that we are currently analysing the responses received, and we will not take any decision lightly. No decisions have yet been taken, and all responses received will be given appropriate consideration. I thank the gambling industry and all individual businesses around the country for their engagement in the consultation process.
	On offshore gambling, there is concern about the loss of tax revenue to the Exchequer and about differences in regulation between countries. Traditionally, gambling takes place mainly in bricks-and-mortar establishments, such as bingo halls, casinos and betting shops, and they are relatively easy for the tax system to deal with. The tax regime developed along place-of-supply principles, with operators based in the UK being liable for UK taxes. The growth first of telephone betting and, more recently, of internet gambling, presents considerable challenges to the tax regime, with remote operators based in other jurisdictions falling outside the domestic tax net. Reforms to betting tax in 2001, which moved taxation on to a gross profits tax basis, were intended to modernise the tax regime and create an incentive for the major UK bookmakers to grow their emerging internet operations from a UK base.
	We are disappointed by the commercial decisions of a number of major UK bookmakers earlier this year to move their internet betting operations offshore for tax purposes. However, it would be self-defeating to engage in a race to the bottom in tax rates with low-tax jurisdictions. We believe that the UK continues to offer one of the most competitive business tax regimes of any major economy, while also having a highly skilled work force, world-class infrastructure, and the internationalism and openness that make us a leading international base for business. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will continue to engage with the industry as I conduct my regular stakeholder consultations.
	When we introduced remote gaming duty in 2007, we looked closely at the options for taxing offshore operators on the basis of place of consumption. However, we concluded that it would be difficult to ensure compliance with any such regime without co-ordinated international agreement. We believe that that remains the case today.
	As I have said, we need to keep the offshoring of gambling firms under close review. Indeed, the issue of offshore and remote gambling goes far beyond taxation. The Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who has responsibility for sport, announced that he would conduct a review of remote gambling legislation in the UK and report to Parliament before the end of this year. The review will explore ways to make the system of gambling regulation in Britain fairer, to ensure a more level playing field between British businesses and their overseas counterparts. The review will rightly be led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but my officials will be in regular contact with representatives from DCMS throughout. As I have said, the Treasury will continue to look carefully at the issues from a tax perspective.
	Some hon. Members-they include my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), but no hon. Member who has spoken this evening-have suggested that the tax regime for gambling should explicitly reflect some measure of problem gambling, either directly, on the basis of harm, or on the basis of risk of harm. That has never been the Government's policy on gambling tax. However, we take problem gambling extremely seriously. The regulation of the gambling industry is, of course, the responsibility of DCMS. Although for the majority of people gambling is an entertaining pastime that does not present any problems, there are a significant number for whom it is anything but.
	The Government fully recognise that. It should be reiterated that the protection of children and the vulnerable from the potential harm of problem gambling remains central to our approach to gambling regulation. For example, through operating licences, the Gambling Commission licenses and regulates all those who offer gaming to the general public. Further protections for consumers are secured in the Gambling Commission's licensing conditions and code of practice, which include specific provisions on issues such as under-age gambling and problem gambling, through requirements relating to supervision, access, staff training and self-exclusion.

Philip Davies: Does the Minister accept that the gambling industry makes a voluntary contribution of £5 million a year to the Responsibility in Gambling Trust? That is unlike the behaviour of any other industry. ASDA, which I used to work for, sells creams cakes, which no doubt lead to obesity. However, as far as I know, ASDA does not give any money towards tackling obesity. The gambling industry does more in that way than any other industry like it.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: We certainly recognise and value the gambling industry's contribution from that £5 million, which helps with the protection that the hon. Gentleman has talked about.
	When considering gambling tax rates, we take all factors into account, including problem gambling considerations, as well as the impact of taxation on individual gambling sectors and the state of the public finances. Although an important consideration, any assessment of the risk of problem gambling is only one of many considerations that must be taken before decisions are taken on tax.
	In conclusion, it is clear that the gambling industry faces a challenging and changing environment. It must react to the smoking ban and the implementation of the 2005 Act, as well as the wider trends of structural change across the leisure sector, including the increasing use of the internet and remote communications, particularly by young people. In addition, the industry will have to manage any issues exacerbated by the current economic climate, as all sectors of the economy must. As I have said, we remain committed to clear, open engagement with the industry, and will continue to keep all gambling tax regimes under review.

Philip Davies: When the Minister looks into the taxation of gambling, will she also commit to taking into account the concerns of many operators about the increased level of fees charged by the Gambling Commission?

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: That is obviously a matter for regulation, but, as I have said, we have to work closely with DCMS when we are setting tax policy, and we have to take those regulatory items into account.
	I hope that the gambling industry will continue to engage with us in the same helpful and professional manner that I have become accustomed to since I took on this responsibility.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.